Life-spans both North & South

MORE than one million extra people have died 'early' in the North of England than the South in the last 50 years, research shows.
An investigation of death records has revealed that people in the North are 20% more likely to die under the age of 75, with researchers describing their study as a "tale of two Englands".
The study, led by the University of Manchester, found there were 1.2 million more premature deaths in the North from 1965 to 2015 - and 14,333 more in 2015 alone.
Their figures also reveal there were 49% more deaths among 35 to 44-year-olds in the North than the South in 2015, and 29% more among 25 to 34-year-olds.
Lead researcher Professor Iain Buchan said: 'Five decades of death records tell a tale of two Englands, North and South.
'They are divided by resources and life expectancy - a profound inequality resistant to the public health interventions of successive governments.
'A new approach is required, one that must address the economic and social factors that underpin early deaths.'

The researchers defined the North of England as the North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and West Midlands.
Meanwhile, the South comprised the East, South West, London and South East.
The study used data from the Office for National Statistics on the whole English population from 1965 to 2015.
The full results will be published in the BMJ's Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
A Government spokeswoman said: "This Government is committed to creating a society where everybody gets the opportunity to make a success of their hard work - regardless of where they are from."

Challenging Tourismofobia in Barcelona!

 by Brian Bamford

ACTIVISTS in Barcelona have recently targeted tourists as part of a campaign against overcrowding, rising rents and house prices.  Responsibility for a recent attack on a sightseeing bus near the Nou Camp football stadium was claimed by Arran Jovent, a group linked to the anti-capitalist, Catalan pro-independence party, Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP).  

There is a precedent for the current anti-tourist sentiment that is now flourishing in parts of Spain that has a long history that goes back at least to 1963, when I was first there. 

 'The representative of financial institutions told us that the Spanish legislation was great.  He says this when people are taking their own lives because of this criminal law, I assure you—I assure you that I haven't thrown a shoe at this man, because I believed it was important to be here now to tell you what I’m telling you. But this man is a criminal and should be treated like one.'

  These words came from the anti-eviction activist Ada Colau 

in the Chamber of Deputies of Spain in February 2013.

In February 2013, Ada Colau who has since become the mayor of Barcelona, was giving a evidence to a Spanish parliamentary hearing.  Colau had helped to set up a grassroots organisation, the Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH), which championed the rights of citizens unable to pay their mortgages or threatened with eviction. Founded in 2009, the PAH quickly became a model for other activists, and a nationwide network of leaderless local groups emerged.  

At that time people across Spain were joining together to campaign against mortgage lenders, occupy banks and physically block bailiffs from carrying out evictions. 

Ada Colau was there to discuss the housing crisis that had devastated Spain.  Since the financial crisis began, 400,000 homes had been foreclosed and a further 3.4m properties lay empty.  In response, Colau had helped to set up a grassroots organisation, the Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH), which championed the rights of citizens unable to pay their mortgages or threatened with eviction. Founded in 2009, the PAH quickly became a model for other activists, and a nationwide network of leaderless local groups emerged. Soon, people across Spain were campaigning against mortgage lenders, occupying banks and physically blocking bailiffs from carrying out evictions.

Others believe Ada Colau and her supporters will have difficulties in transforming the two-party democracy that has ruled Spain since the days of General Franco.  

'I don’t think the ideas of a city can be based on what a citizen’s assembly wants – it’s absurd,' said Francesc de Carreras, a constitutional law professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. 'Democracy doesn’t mean that everyone expresses their desires and they come true by some miracle.

'It’s not a good idea to have citizens participate in these things. We’re not the ones who have skills in these areas,' he said. 'I don’t go into a restaurant and tell them how to cook.'

'The Barcelona model is in decline,' said journalist Marta Monedero, referring to the ideas that guided the city’s growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s and helped put Barcelona on the world map.  'The model was a way to understand the city and bring it closer to the people – there wasn’t a lot of money so they came up with things like having lots of squares and intensifying the social fabric of the city through organisations.'

Monedero recently co-edited a book called The Dream of Barcelona: A City in Which to Live or to See?, in which she and journalist Núria Cuadrado asked residents from various sectors of society about the issues facing the city.  What they found was that the model that had once been so successful in guiding the city was now deeply out of sync with everyday reality.  Unlike in the late 1980s, today around 17% of the city’s population is foreign born.  Housing activists say that some 15 residents a day were evicted from their homes in 2014.  Until recently like other cities across Spain, unemployment remains stubbornly in double digits, while the young and educated continue to leave the city in hopes of finding work abroad.

Eduard Masjuan*

In 2006, the anarcho-syndicalist Spanish CGT trade union federation in Barcelona at the request of Tameside Trade Union Council in Greater Manchester, sent an expert on urban housing, Eduard Masjuan Bracons, to speak at Manchester Friends Meeting House about the problems of urban living, housing, planning and design.  The then active Manchester Social Forum was also party to the invite of Eduard Masjuan from the Universitat de Barcelona (Historia Economica), and the Manchester electricians in the then EPIU branch 1400/07, who later were famously in the forefront in exposing the blacklist in the British building trade, were present at the presentation fresh from fighting a case at the Manchester Employment Tribunal. 

The Manchester electrician, Steve Acheson, told the meeting about the problems of health and safety and conditions on the building sites, and what at that time were perceived as being victimisation against trade unionists and safety representatives on the local building sites.  The Calalan academic, Señor Masjuan addressed the urban problems in the city of Barcelona:  the shifting of local residents out from the central barrios to the peripheral suburban areas; and the corruption that was evident in the politics of all parties in the city. 

The predicament of the residents of Barcelona and the electricians on the British building sites were not so dissimilar in 2006.  The young people of Barcelona could not afford the rising prices of appartments in the Catalan capital, and in the same way even today we learn that many of the construction workers who work on building sites can't afford to buy the buildings they are errecting.  

In 2013, when Ada Colau addressed the parliamentary committee, ten minutes into Colau’s 40-minute testimony she broke from the script.  Her voice cracking with emotion, she turned her attention to the previous speaker, Javier Rodriguez Pellitero, the deputy general secretary of the Spanish Banking Association:   

'This man is a criminal, and should be treated as such.  He is not an expert.  The representatives of financial institutions have caused this problem; they are the same people who have caused the problem that has ruined the entire economy of this country – and you keep calling them experts.'

When she had finished, the white-haired chair of the parliament’s economic committee turned to Colau and asked her to withdraw her “very serious offences” in slandering Pellitero.  She shook her head and quietly declined.

The 'criminal' video became a media sensation, earning Colau condemnation in some quarters and heroine status in others.  A poll for the Spanish newspaper El País a few weeks later revealed that 90% of the country’s population approved of the PAH.  The group’s work continued.  In July 2013, Colau was photographed in Barcelona being dragged away by riot police from a protest against a bank that had refused to negotiate with an evicted family.


*  Books by Eduard Masjuan:

• • E. Masjuan, H.M. Elena & D. Saurí, "Conflicts and struggles over urban water cycles: The case de Barcelona",
  • E. Masjuan, "La cultura de la naturaleza en el anarquismo ibérico y cubano", Signos históricos, 15 (2006), p. 98-122.
  • E. Masjuan, "El pensamiento demográfico anarquista: fecundidad y emigración a América Latina (1900-1914)", Revista de demografía histórica, (2004), p. 153-180.
  • E. Masjuan, "Medis obrers, conflictivitat social i innovació cultural a Sabadell (1877-1914)", Recerques, 47-48 (2004), p. 131-155.
  • E. Masjuan, "Procreación consciente y discurso ambientalista: anarquismo y neomalthusianismo en España e Italia, 1900-1936", Ayer, 46 (2002), pp. 63-92.
• Altres publicacions:
  • E. Masjuan, Un héroe trágico del anarquismo español. Mateo Morral, 1879-1906, Barcelona: Icaria editorial, 2009.
  • E. Masjuan, "Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) i la nova cultura de la naturalesa en els medis obrers de 1900-1936", a Ciència i compromís social. Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) i la geografia de la llibertat, Barcelona: Residència d'Investigadors CSIC-Generalitat de Catalunya, s2007.
  • E. Masjuan, Medis obrers i innovació cultural a Sabadell, (1900-1939), Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions de la UAB, 2006.
  • E. Masjuan, La Ecología humana en el anarquismo ibérico. Urbanismo orgánico u ecológico, neomalthusianismo y naturismo social, Barcelona: Icaria editorial, 2000.
  • E. Masjuan, "El urbanismo ecológico de Patrick Geddes y Cebrià de Montoliu", a Arturo Soria y el urbanismo europeo de su tiempo, 1894-1994, Madrid: Fundación Cultural del Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, 1996, pp. 51-65.

'Social action or social media' asks Michael Netto

'Social media is no replacement for social action', says 

Michael Netto*, former regional President of Unite on Gibraltar

May 05, 2015

PEOPLE need to stop using social media in order to let off steam and direct their complaints to the unions who can do something to remedy them.

This is the opinion of Michael Netto, who has recently retired from his positions in Gibraltar Unite the Union, and whose efforts in the union movements have been second to none in the community, especially during May Day celebrations.

Netto started getting involved in the unions leafleting households to inform the public leading to his participation in the first real general strike for workers' rights and conditions in 1972.  'Whereas nowadays we have internet, when I was 16 I would go with brother and father handing out leaflets door-to-door about any issue which the union at the time wanted to highlight,' he said.

He stepped up his participation in the unions after finishing his studies at the technical college, where he remember the festivities at this time of the year:  
'The May Days of those years were done in the Regal Cinema where issues of the public and private sector were highlighted through films and documentaries that described the military coups in Chile or the strikes in England.
'However, the conditions of workers, both in Gibraltar and the rest of Europe were not what they were today. Even with the economic crisis now, they aren't as degrading with very little consideration for health and safety or employment rights back then.'

For workers

He recalled a May Day in the 1980s, which he spent picketing the South Depot of the MoD's Department of the Environment where a UK duty manager with a very colonial attitude tried to run over one of the union's shop stewards:  'Everybody was saying that unless that guy wasn't sent back to the UK we wouldn't start work and even though the MoD didn't shift him immediately, he was moved to the North Depot before finally being sent back after a couple of months.'
Netto, who headed the Trade and General Worker's Union (TGWU), constantly fought the GSD's decision to move May Day to the first Monday of the month, as along with its successors, Unite the Union, they felt that what was being celebrated were all the past victories for all our workers.
'We take for granted the 40-hour week, health and safety, maternity and paternity rights which among 1001 things have been achieved through union struggles all over the world," he continued. "Gibraltar has still got many rights that have been lost in many parts of Europe and there are still many things that need to be achieved so we are keen to maintain the May Day tradition.'
When the GSLP (Gib. Socialist Labour Party)/ Liberals came to office in 2011 they not only reinstated May Day but also chose to celebrate Worker's Memorial Day, reinforcing that desire to honour the unions' efforts, and those individuals that have lost their lives at work.
'In line with other European countries, political parties that pursue progressive ideas tend to do events on May 1,' said Netto.  'Unfortunately, there's only one party that has done that and that's the GSLP/Liberals, reflecting a very good relationship between them and Unite.'
He described the current Government having been 'more courageous' than the GSD ever was in pursuing worker issues both in the public and private sectors.

'Guerilla typists'

 Netto said he gets very disappointed with the way that ex-union activists criticise Unite's activities in the street or social media:  'I'm retired now but I intend to contribute in one way or another to the trade union movement rather than take on this bitterness that only aims to bring down the trade union movement.'
While he recognises that the trade unions locally and abroad are different to what they were in yesteryear, he believes that change has come because society itself has shifted.
'We no longer measure the success of the unions by the number of strikes we've had," said Netto. "Moreover, the way we do things has changed and people prefer to go to a lawyer than a union to the extent that sometimes our achievements work against us because people don't feel aggrieved anymore.
'Not only that but while previously workers would discuss their issues in the workplace or with the union, nowadays they become 'guerilla typists'. They explain their issue on social media to make themselves feel good rather than taking further action to find solutions.'

                                                                                      05-05-15 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR
*   Michael Netto was a member of the anarcho-syndicalist Direct Action Movement (DAM), when he was working in England in the early 1980s, and his father, who became Regional Secretary of the then Gibraltar Branch of the British Transport & General Worker Union in the 1980s was a member of the Syndicalist Workers' Federation (SWF) in the 1960s.
gibraltarpanorama.gi/mobile/displayarticle.aspx?smid=15209&aid=118306 

The National Trust in Totalitarians Times

VOLUNTEERS at Felbrigg Hall, a Norfolk property owned by the National Trust, were being dragooned last week into wearing gay pride type badges.  It has been reported that dozens of unpaid guides have either refused to do so or quit the job.

The disgruntled volunteers are protesting against the requirement they wear the gay rainbow badges as part of the Felbrigg Hall commemorative season entitled 'Pride & Prejudice' to mark 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967. 

Annabel Smith, head of volunteering and participation development at the Trust, has said volunteers sign up to the organisation's 'founding principles' of promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion.
However, she added:  'We do recognise that some volunteers may have conflicting, personal opinions,'.

Dame Helen Ghosh, the well-paid director general of the National Trust, has said the National Trust was marking the anniversary of the law change at 'a dozen or so of our properties of the people who lived there and whose personal lives were outside the social norms of their time'.

Dame Helen has been adept at climbing the greasy pole in the national bureaucratic hierarchies.  She did alternate stints at the Department of Pensions, the Cabinet Office, the Department for the Environment and HM Revenue and Customs under Tony Blair's New Labour regime.  She was made a Dame in 2008 when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, and became Permanent secretary of the Home Office in 2011.

She was appointed to the National Trust, which has an income of £500 million a year.  Last year, Melvyn Bragg accused the National Trust of 'mafia tactics' when it used it's deep pockets to buy Lake District farmland at inflated prices, and in doing so outbidding local sheep farmers who had hoped to work the land.

In the real world the National Trust operates a funny kind of equality of opportunity and inclusion.

Richard Dawkins & 'Gut Methodology'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birmingham Bin Strikes!

FOR weeks Birmingham has been enduring a series of rolling strikes by their bin men belonging to the UNITE union, who are accusing their Labour Council employing them of 'playing games', and being set on conflict rather than negotiation over proposed changes in working practices on the job.and the downgading of supervisors positions. 

The dispute is now in its fourth week has been extended from one and two-hour stoppages a day on June 30th, to three-hour stoppages last week and is now planned to continue until September.  

According to The Guardian:

'The UNITE union claims restructuring plans threaten the jobs of more than 120 staff and that workers on £21,000 a year could face a pay cut of up to £5,000. The Labour-run local authority argues that its plans to modernise the service would save £5m a year at a time when council budgets have been cut by central government.'

The UNITE union has said that redundancy notices were sent to staff, mainly the 133 leading hands, while talks are ongoing sparking fury among the members.

Howard Beckett, an assistant general secretary of UNITE, said if talks failed then industrial action, already planned to run up to the middle of September, would escalate, resulting in more waste going uncollected.
'I would also ask the Birmingham public to understand that strike action is a last resort for our members and places them in considerable financial hardship,” he said. “The reality is they have been left with no choice because of the regrade of their jobs and loss of income, which is simply unaffordable for our members.'

The dispute over changes to working practices and the downgrading of supervisor jobs has now entered its third week with no sign of a resolution in sight.
And the trade union Unite has accused the Labour run council of ‘playing games’ and being set on conflict rather than genuine negotiation. It says that redundancy notices were sent to staff, mainly the 133 leading hands, while talks are ongoing sparking fury among the members.
The extension of strike action means further misery for thousands of residents who have already seen overflowing wheelie bins left uncollected, or picked up days late, for weeks.

Fracking in Lancashire

THOUGHOUT July there have been reports of incidents at the fracking site in Lancashire.  On the 12th, July 2017 there was a story in The Guardian about Ashley Robinson, 22, from Blackpool being hit by a van which immediately left the scene.

A Youtube video posted was immediately after the incident shows the protester, dressed in grey and black, trying to block a white van leaving the Preston New Road drill site.

Following this outrage ensued on social media after the incident, which follows allegations of excessive use of force by police and security officials around the plant.

 A Fylde police spokeswoman confirmed that the video was 'taken at the scene' of the incident. But she also said that the van had taken 'evasive action' to avoid an accident and no injuries were reported.

Ashley Robinson, 22, from Blackpool, said he was the protester in the video.  He said he escaped the collision with just bruising to his lower spine.  He told the Guardian: 'The van sped up as it came towards me. I caught the side of the car and went down.'

Stalybridge Tesco raided by immigration officers looking for illegal workers!

Immigration officers raid Stalybridge Tesco

LAST Friday, officers from 'Immigration Enforcement' raided the Tesco car park in Stalybridge looking for illegal workers. An eyewitness, who took this photograph, told NV that on early on Friday morning, immigration officers were seen questioning two people who were working at the Tesco Hand Car Wash.

As with a lot of countries, the subject of immigration is a sensitive subject for many who live in Britain. Although 52% of people last year, voted for Britain to leave the EU on the grounds that they believed that it would curb immigration into the UK, the minority Conservative government of Theresa May, now say they want a flexible approach to migration and a transition period when Britain leaves the EU in 2019.  

Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has stated that there will be no "cliff-edge" in the migration system when the UK officially leaves the EU in March 2019. Senior political figures such as Michael Gove, a staunch Brexiteer, have stated that the cabinet is in favour of allowing free movement of labour to continue during an implementation phase of two to four years after 2019, when EU workers will have to register their details. No doubt this is aimed at reassuring British businesses, who rely on migrant labour, and others who see Brexit, as a ruinous economic policy for Britain. 

Never the less, many people may be wondering what it is they voted for last June when they voted for Brexit. According to one distinguished academic, all the talk about hard or soft Brexit, is utter nonsense. Professor Ian Begg, of the London School of Economics (LSE), said recently that the choice between a hard or soft Brexit was a "false dichotomy" and that there was in reality, only two choices facing the UK - either we leave the EU or we decide to stay. My guess is that at the end of the day, we will finish up not with a Brexit, but a fudge called a BINO - Brexit in name only. 

On 23rd June 2017, some 61.1% of people who live in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, voted to leave the EU, even though many see leaving, as a tragic act of folly. The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Angela Rayner, told the Guardian newspaper in a recent interview that there was:

"absolutely no way you can disrespect the way people voted. If it was a popular thing on the streets of Britain, there could be another referendum, but until the general public has a change of heart, we're going to exit Europe. The public can make their feelings clear, and there can be a groundswell for it. Politicians are political animals; they're savvy. That's why most of them are saying they respect the vote. But MPs haven't changed their mind on Brexit. Most of them are weeping. They want to stay in Europe because they think this is going to be really damaging. If I got a feeling in my constituency that the public wanted to remain, I'd say 'Brake'." 

We understand that following the Tesco raid last week, the car wash at Tesco Stalybridge has now been closed.

U.S. Senators support bill making protests against the Israeli occupation of Palestine a crime!

GAZA 2014

WHEN the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said that Adolph Hitler had supported 'Zionism', he was denounced in some circles as a Hitler apologist.  However, when he was dragged before Labour's National Constitutional Committee, he wasn't charged with anti-Semitism, but with bringing the Labour Party into disrepute, the catch-all clause favoured by many organisations aimed at silencing and censuring critics within their ranks.

Likewise, when the former chair of 'Momentum', Jackie Walker, stated in a private conversation that:  'Many Jews, my ancestors too, were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade...' she was outed by the 'Israel Advocacy Movement' and accused of anti-Semitism and suspended by the Labour Party. 

Some pundits have argued that many of these type of accusations of anti-Semitism are not only bogus and spurious, but are really  aimed at trying to silence the critics of the Israeli State, such as the peaceful 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions' (BDS) movement and anti-Zionist supporters of the Palestinians. The type of people, for example, who condemned the shelling, bombing, and drone strikes, that killed 1500 civilians in Gaza in 2014, one third of them children.  When the man who ordered this attack, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, addressed the US Congress in February 2015, he was given 25 standing ovations.

Other critics have also drawn attention to the way in which countries like the UK have adopted the 'International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance' (IHRA) 'working definition' of anti-Semitism which includes over-sweeping condemnation of the state of Israel. Over 400 words long, this definition of anti-Semitism equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and has already been adopted by the British police to help them decide what can be considered anti-Semitism, previously considered as 'hostility or hatred of Jews as Jews.'

Spurred on by this new IHRA 'working definition' of anti-Semitism, a group of Democratic Senators in America, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and fellow Senator Chuck Schumer, along with twelve other Democratic Senators around the country, are supporting a bipartisan bill that will make the act of protesting against that Israeli occupation of Palestine a crime in the U.S. If the bill gets passed and is signed off by the U.S. President (Dr Strangelove), Donald Trump, then protests action such as supporting the BDS movement, could result in a million dollar fine and 20 years in prison.

Some argue that if the law passes, it will act as a Trojan Horse to dismantle the first amendment that guarantees free speech and a free press and will define those who engage in peaceful political protests as 'terrorists'.

Crummy Jobs: Park Cake Bakeries have their cake and eat it!

Park Cake Bakeries

Anyone who has had the misfortune to be pressed ganged by the Jobcentre onto a so-called government training scheme in Greater Manchester, will have heard of John Hill Biscuits in Ashton-under-Lyne and Park Cake Bakeries in Oldham. For donkey's years, both firms have relied on seasonal casual workers and temps to meet their production needs particularly in the run up to Christmas and other festive periods.

In 2011, employees at Park Cakes in Bolton and Oldham threatened industrial action following the introduction of new employment contracts, which were described as tantamount to 'slave labour'.  Park Cake were accused by the 'Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union' (BFAWU), of seeking to circumvent the EU 'Temporary Agency Workers Directive' which came into effect in October 2011. This directive (which Conservative leader David Cameron tried to block), entitles agency staff who work for twelve consecutive weeks, with the same employer, to equal rates of pay and basic working conditions with permanent  employees. The cake and dessert maker was accused by the union of creating a "two-tier workforce" by introducing about 30 new permanent staff on minimum wage contracts to drive down terms and conditions, in order to bring in cheap agency labour and zero-hour contracts. 

This afternoon I spoke to a young woman outside Ashton Jobcentre who told us about her experience of working at Park Cake Bakeries in Oldham on a wonderful zero-hour contracts. She explained that there are two agencies now based in Park Cake Bakeries who recruit staff on zero-hour contracts. Having been recruited initially via the Jobcentre, she receives text messages from the agency calling on her to attend the bakery for possible work. She then explained that she was told to sit and wait for two-hours, in the expectation that there might be work, but she would be paid for the second hour. If nothing was available, she is sent home. According to this young woman, around 90% of the staff at the bakery are agency staff. When I asked how she could know this, she said because she could tell agency staff by the colour of the hairnets - red and purple for agencies workers and white for those directly employed by Park Cake.

When  I asked this young woman how she managed to live when she was not getting temporary work, she said she relied on the goodwill and generosity of friends and neighbours. This is the world of work that many now face daily in Tory England. Data provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in March of this year, shows that the number of UK workers in zero-hour employment has rocketed to reach a staggering 905,000 people, an increase of 101,000 over the past year alone. Recent research undertaken by Middlesex University found that one-in-20 workers do not get statutory holiday pay and on-in-12 does not get a payslip. Around £1.2bn in wages are unpaid annually. 

As Britain prepares to leave the EU, expect more of this race to the bottom and precarious employment. This country will sold on the basis of low-taxes for the bosses and little or no rights or regulation for the workers. This, we will  be told, is all in the national interest. 

William Morris at Wakefield Socialist History Group

Comrades

Forwarding the latest  newsletter from the William Morris Society.

The next Wakefield Socialist History Group event, DEMOCRACY UNCHAINED: TOWARDS A REAL DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT, is next Saturday (22 July)1pm at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1.

Fraternally

Alan Stewart

Convenor, Wakefield Socialist History Group

William Morris Society on behalf of William Morris Society

Sent: 15 July 2017 13:02
Subject: Latest news and events from The William Morris Society

Latest news, exhibitions and events from The William Morris Society View this email in your browser

The William Morris Society eBulletin no. 16

From Belfast to London

by Desi Friel

Where does one begin?  

Someone once told me to write about what I knew and to relate my history in the light of current events.  Many people from our Muslim community have just been victims of a callous and cowardly act of attempted murder.  Call it subliminal horror or a deeply sad series of memories; not buried, but faded over the years.  But as with many others, I grew up in Belfast during one of the worst periods in our recent history.  So imagine if you will, becoming conditioned (beyond the religious nonsense of course), to being forever on your guard and learning to avoid potential danger by taking the right steps at the right time.  

You avoided the choke-points of confrontation, the road blocks (when you could), the inquisitorial nature of the forces of law and order, because you had an evidently Irish name. You left your friends, usually musicians from all sides of your community, said goodbye and hoped that nothing combustible would happen on your way home.  You walk through a park and are forever looking over your shoulder to make sure you are not being followed.  In public places you sit with your back to a wall for the best 180 degree view of your surroundings.

In short, you learn that (beyond the messed-up politics), you are as likely an innocent victim as anyone else.  News seeps in that someone you knew has been abducted by a torturing murder squad; just for being of the opposite persuasion.  Their body is found up the Cave Hill in a pitiful state and your blood boils with the indignation of an affront to humanity. Above all, you cry to the universe that the vast majority of the human beings you know are good, caring, loving people to whom violence is abhorrent.

That wee, insidious , poisonous, deranged minority of lunatics has tried to spread their ignorance and fear to the rest of the reservoir of humanity with whom you live, cheek by jowl.  Retaliation and hatred breeds more retaliation and hatred and spreads like a copy-cat cancer until their ignorance and hatred runs out of steam and they turn their Neanderthal attentions elsewhere.  The dark clouds of our recent tragedies have unveiled a silver lining without parallel, to those who would marginalise the poor and the under-privileged, and who would ignore the calls of those in greatest need.  It screams from the roof-tops: "Look, we will not be cowed, this is how a good and caring community really works.   We give what we can and we help where we may.  We are not idiots and we will show government what caring for society really means".

Fear of what is on the other side of the wall, panting and snuffling and following, can be crippling because you know that at the end of the wall there is a gap and that soon you either have to turn face and run, or confront your ignorance.   When you get to the gap you have been fearing, the friendly poodle licks your hand and your relief is compounded by the pride you take in having overcome your fear.

Most rational people have little doubt that those in so-called power may be nothing else but the mouth-pieces of the mandarins and oligarchs; perhaps the puppeteers need to listen as well as pulling the strings.  Love really is all there is

Desi xxx

Are we facing a Biafran Genocide 50 years on?

by Solomon Egbo (Coordinator for IPOB Manchester)

THIS article is written in the hope that another genocide in Nigeria can be prevented.  Most of the developed world stood back as the Biafran War, which started 50 years ago on July 6th. 1967, descended into genocide.

During the war there were great shortages of food and medicine throughout Biafra, due largely to the Nigerian and British governments' blockade of the region. Furthermore the destruction of Biafra was as much about the protection of strategic British interests in Biafra as it was for the Federal Government to retain control of this oil rich region. Only when images of Biafran children flooded Western media, did the world began to pay attention. 

Whereas nations stood back many individuals showed their abhorence of the mindless slaughter.John Lennon returned his MBE order to the Queen in protest at the UK's involvement in the Biafran War. 20 year old Student, Bruce Mayrock,   burnt himself to death outside the United Nation’s Headquarters in protest against the killings.  He took his own life for people whom he never met before.

Two more young men in Lille, France, also took their lives  in January 1970. One 16 ‐year‐old set himself afire in his school  playground . His suicide note said “I offer myself to atone for the wrongs committed in Biafra, against war, violence and the folly of men.” The other, a 19 year old, left this message “ I did it as a sign of protest against violence, to see love again.” Both received church rites from the Right Reverend Adrien Gand, Bishop of Lille, who said “Only God, who gives us life, may take it back. But how can we fail to see that the cruel reality of the world is striking the young. They await our witness, the testimony of our hope and of our engagement.”

The recent death of Steve Jobs, co- founder of Apple, has propelled Biafra back into the news again. His  biography, written by Walter Isaacson, says that Biafra was instrumental in  Jobs  renunciation of his  Christian faith when as a  13-year-old he confronted his Church pastor with a photograph of two starving Biafran children on the cover of Life magazinebut failed to get a satisfactory answer as to why God allowed such things to happen.

There has been of persecution of the Igbos  and christians prior to and since the Biafran War. For now though, paraphrasing the Bishop's  words we need to bear witness  and engage  in preventing a repeat of the Biafran tragedy.

President Buhari came to power in 2015 in an election when he was actively sponsored by British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama. Seen as a strong figure, a former military dictator of his country, but as other administrations have done his  still 'tolerates' terrorism.

An example of this is state sponsored terrorism in allowing Fulani herdsmen freedom to herd their cattle anywhere and when  challenged they have killed thousands of unarmed men (mainly Igbos) and committed other atrocities. The killing goes unpunished by the state and a President who is a Felani himself! This is not a new phenomena as Christians across the north have been persecuted and killed in increasing numbers over the years.

However the emergence of groups like IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) peacefully campaigning again for Biafra to be recognised as an independent state has led to an extreme reaction from muslims in the north.

An ultimatum has been issued by the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (ACYF), a coalition of socio-political groups in northern Nigeria, giving a three months ultimatum for all Igbos in the 19 northern states to vacate the region. If the Igbos fail to leave by the October 1, 2017, the group said, it would use force to evict the Igbos. They also threatened to take over all the  properties of the Igbos after they had left the region. In a press conference in Kaduna AYFC President,  Yerima Shettima, claimed that an event staged by Igbo groups, was a threat to the country’s national security. This was a 'sit at home' protest organised by the Supreme Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra groups, IPOB and MASSOB, in remembrance of the Biafra  war that led to the death of  an estimated 6.5 million people.#

What is the Federal Government doing you might ask? Althouh there is no attempt to prosecute terrorist attacks by Fulani herdsmen theNigeria Department of State Service (DSS) have previously unlawfully detained, by order of President Buhari, the leader of IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and thousands of IPOB and Massob supporters have  been killed by security forces, 'disappeared' or unlawfully imprisoned. This is nothing short of state sponsored terrorism.

These events are met with almost deathening silence across the world, indeed   under Cameron and now May, the British Government are condoning these atrocities by not speaking out.History shows the UK bears a large share of the blame because of how it organised the transition to an independent Nigeria.

I feel there is an urgent need for the United Nations to set up a commission for truth and recognise that Biafrans are an indigenous people exercising 'THEIR RIGHT FOR SELF DETERMINATION' .

The Biafran Genocide is pending and  I ask you to listen to this cry for justice and act  to alert politicians here and around the world of their responsibility to prevent a recurrence of the trajedy  50 years ago.

# See Nigeria: 'Bullets were raining everywhere': Deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists.

November 2016 Amnesty.

Https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr44/5211/2016/en/  

Coup at Freedom?

IT seems that there has been a kind of coup at Freedom, with Simon Saunders (the acting editor of Freedom) getting rid of Andy [Meinke].  It's not easy to follow what's going on, but on his Facebook page on the 8th, June, Andy [Meinke] writes:

'
If the saga of my suspension was a sign of Freedom taking misogyny and patriarchy seriously it would be worth it.  In fact the majority of people involved in Freedom have just abdicated any responsibility for dealing with these issues.
  Meantime Freedom has another issue which illustrates perfectly what's wrong with the group at the moment.  Someone wrote an article for the Freedom website about the disruption of a pro Syrian government meeting at the Marx Memorial Library.  The acting Freedom editor (Simon Saunders) refuses to put it on the website saying attacking the far left is not what Freedom is concentrating on....   However the Editors paid job is for the Morning Star newspaper.  That should be something that he is aware of and reflects on his own potential and perceived bias however when this conflict of interest is pointed out by her he responds by saying she's "internet stalking him"....   Comrades are entitled to know what the Editor of Freedom does for a living.'

There's more, much more, but it just looks like a cheap power struggle between Andy Meinke and Simon Saunders.  We'll just have wait and see if the Friends of Freedom can do anything to improve things.

An Alternative View:

My own feeling is Andy wouldn't have been deposed by just one person. Others must have at the very least provided Simon with tacit support.

Simon shouldn't have any problems with either the CPB or the Morning Star. They're on fairly good terms with senior people in the Greens (esp those who have an anarchist bent), Stop the War and Corbyn's Labour.

To take a public position on Syria can invite intense harassment and denunciation from opponents.
Chances are the event at the Marx Memorial Library referred to is the one in this article. https://bsnews.info/bravo-marx-memorial-library-workers-school/

CLOWNS FALL OUT –

BIG TOP TO BE SOLD?

(“FREEDOM’s” posthumous annual report 2 – July 2017) 

by Christopher Draper

REGULAR readers will recall how FREEDOM – one of the world’s longest running radical newspapers was destroyed by authoritarian “class warriors” who refuse to vacate its valuable (£1.5m) London premises.  FREEDOM’s Board (FFP) is obliged to resume publication of the newspaper but for two years made negligible efforts to regain the building or restore FREEDOM and effectively colludes with clowns claiming rents from fellow occupants of their self-proclaimed “anarcho-hangout”.  This situation provides nothing for anarchists around the country and achieves even less in spreading anarchist ideas.  On the contrary this whole embarrassing episode is a text-book example of anarchist ineptitude.  NORTHERN VOICES will not collude with this nonsense and we’re happy to expose the absurdist antics of the clown “collective”.

Andy Exits the Circus

Two of the funniest clowns Simon Saunders (“Computer Game-boy”) and Andy Meinke (“Beer-belly”) are jealous performers.  Last year they laughably named and blacklisted four of our NV team for publishing critical reviews.  Simon issued a fatwah – the Northern Voices 4: “should not be given any support by anarchist or progressive organisations…they should not be welcome in anarchist spaces nor published in anarchist outlets – they are persona non grata…”   Now Saunders has banned his fellow clown!  Apparently Andy over-indulged in the beer tent, made off-colour remarks about female artistes and on 7th June 2017 was sacked by the clown collective.  Simple Simon is now ringmaster but the Big Top’s tatty, the audience has drifted away and new management is itching for change.

Last Laugh?

Just a year ago Andy taunted audiences mourning the loss of FREEDOM with his arrogant boast, “Kropotkin might have started it but we fucking finished it”.
You might recall, Simon first entered the Big Top selling Syndicalist programmes whilst simultaneously proclaiming ignorance of anarchist politics – now he claims infallibility.  What a funny old circus!  There’s no performance and the Big Top leaks like a sieve.  Can a pair of plucky new governors save the day?

  Vero Richard’s Dying Circus

Decades ago, when wily old ringmaster Vero Richards re-founded the FREEDOM tradition he was smart enough to create a board of management (FFP) to guarantee the set-up after his death but before he was in his grave miscreants moved in, drove away audiences and threatened outsiders. When aged ex-performer Brian Bamford turned up at last year’s FFP AGM he was knocked to the ground by clowns Andy and Simon, whilst FFP Company Secretary Sorba deleted the digital evidence from the victim’s camera.  What a performance!

New Friends of FREEDOM

Now the show’s over, the clowns have had their day and the audience want their money back. Fortunately, since last year’s AGM management has been refreshed. There are now nine FFP members and the majority are not amused.  FFP now comprises the following nine members;
Stephen Charles Sorba – director of a printworks
Carolyn Jane Wilson - cycle trainer
Jason Holdway - unemployed (rarely attends FFP meetings)
Martin Howard - compiled quizzes for “Black Flag”
David Goodway - libertarian writer and historian
Ernest Rodker - veteran peace campaigner
Jayne Clementson - long-time stalwart of “old” FREEDOM
David John Douglass - libertarian communist ex-coal miner
Peter Marshall - anarchist author of “Demanding the Impossible”

Past Failures

Until now the FFP Board failed every bit as badly as the “collective” to act as anarchists, both preferring to operate as secretive cabals, accountable to nobody.  Neither “collective” nor FFP publishes minutes or identifies its members.  Fortunately, our contacts abound and NV is proud to Wikileak details of what’s been going on.  Now it’s time for radical change.
Whilst the first four people on our FFP list - Sorba, Wilson, Holdway, Howard seem determined not to re-establish the open-minded anarchism that long characterised FREEDOM the last five named are more solid FRIENDS OF FREEDOM.  Significantly the sectarian four all exist in the London bubble (with at least 3, Sorba, Wilson and Holdway concentrated in the South East corner of that bubble), whilst Goodway travels to meetings from Keighley, Marshall journeys from Plymouth and Douglass from South Shields.
Northern Voices has always criticised FFP’s London bias only to be dismissed by ringmaster Saunders for speaking “from the other side of Britain”!
FREEDOM newspaper was formerly the forum for anarchists across Britain, now the Aldgate “anarcho-hangout” is no more than clubrooms for metropolitans.  Anarchists are supposed to reject structures that dis-empower yet the collective are content to exploit their privileged position as Londoners.  Merely to travel to the FREEDOM building is an expensive disincentive for many anarchists around the country yet neither the “collective” nor FFP rotates its meetings around England or even offers a fare-pool so for the recent AGM NV put its money where our mouth is and chipped in £40 to enable one of the northern FFP members to attend.

Anarchism Begins at Home

From their next meeting in October 2017, FFP need to start acting as anarchists and tackle this issue.   Either move your meetings around the country or share the costs.  It is written into FFP’s formal constitution (para. 32) that members attending should have their expenses paid but this has just been ignored by Company Secretary Sorba and guess where he lives.
Next, FFP must put the old FREEDOM building up for sale.  It was bought to provide premises to layout and print the paper but this is no longer required to publish either an electronic or print edition. A sale would raise £1.5m to £2.0m which could finance a publications fund split between maintaining a new high quality FREEDOM anarchist news site and a separate book-publishing programme of say two titles per year.  This could be overseen by a publications sub-committee of FFP.  A website editor could be appointed by this group and granted, say, a renewable, modest biannual stipend.
The existing fixed metropolitan asset must be liquidated to discontinue further privileging a London elite and refocus on the needs of the widely scattered, isolated anarchist community.  When the clowns trashed FREEDOM and cast aside the loyalty of former subscribers, only FFP member and FREEDOM stalwart Jayne Clementson expressed any sensitivity or understanding of the harm they caused to the anarchist movement.

Time for a Change

Since FREEDOM was shut down Northern Voices has ceaselessly campaigned for a revival.  We’re heartened by the exit of Meinke and appointment of Dave Douglass and Peter Marshall and encouraged by the response of someone close to the collective, “I have no doubt your group’s commendable efforts precipitated this”, but fine words butter no parsnips.  We call on Dave Douglass and Peter Marshall to put some iron into the soul of other well-intentioned but irresolute FRIENDS.  FREEDOM, like the Norwegian Blue, might appear deceased but now, in July 2017, the FRIENDS have the individuals, the ideas and the resources to get FREEDOM squawking again. They owe it to anarchists around the country not to let a few London clowns reduce our whole political philosophy and movement to chucking custard pies.

Christopher Draper – for Northern Voices (July 2017)

Freedom's Metropolitan Bubble Bursts!

Anarchist Publishing House Broadens its Base
by Brian Bamford

LAST Monday at this year's Annual General Meeting, the Friends of Freedom Press have appointed two new directors from outside London.  In doing so, with the appointment of the former miner and trade unionist, David Douglass from Tyneside, and the writer, Peter Marshall from Plymouth, they have effectively broken the stranglehold of a metropolitan political clan which has continually served to castrate the publication of Freedom as a serious intellectual voice of radical anarchism.

News over the weekend came out that the Freedom Bookshop manager, Andy Meinke, is leaving his job, but it is still unclear as to whether he is leaving of his own accord or if he has been dismissed by the unofficial Freedom Collective, over which he had a degree of influence.  A year ago Mr. Meinke was questioned by the Metropolitan Police after an incident in the Freedom Press Bookshop in which he played a role trying to prevent someone from participating in last year's Friends of Freedom Press' AGM.

The story of the strange departure of Mr. Meinke came to Northern Voices on the evening of the 16th, June, when we got the following e-mail from someone unknown to us in London:
'Thought you would like to know I was listening to Dissident Island Radio earlier this evening. Andy Meinke, has a regular five minute slot on the two-hour show.  He said at the end of his usual schtick that he was leaving Freedom and there would be a farewell drink in the shop at 2pm this Sunday' 
Almost a week later this same source informed us:
'The edition of Dissident Island Radio I referred to last week is online.  The final section of Andy's slot where he mentions leaving has been removed and one of the shows sweary radio idents has been inserted to camouflage the edit.  Heaven knows what he's up to.'
Later, our informant further updated us:
'The situation has spilled over on to Facebook with Meinke and others, including that anarchist can't recall his name who works for the Morning Star (editor: this is presumably Simon Saunders, formally from Ipswich). Facebook is a no-go zone for me so I haven't followed it'
Our informant ends up with a warning by saying:
'I have no doubt your group's commendable actions precipitated this.  The only questions remaining are what carnage will be discovered in his wake, and if the place (Freedom Press Bookshop) doesn't collapse, who will replace him.'
Another metropolitan pundit writes today in response to the news of Mr. Meinke's departure:
'Good news for Freedom.  Maybe not so good for wherever he ends up next.' 
Ultimately. the Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) themselves, particularly the FFP Secretary Steven Charles Sorba appointed as secretary of FFP in 2002, should be asking themselves how they came to allow someone like Andy Meinke to be employed for so long, empowered as a virtual overlord to very dubious goings on, without the directors applying any obvious restraints. It may be just a coincidence but the decline of Freedom newspaper seems to date from 2002, when Harold Schulthorpe, then living in Hebden Bridge, resigned as secretary of FFP, and Steve Sorba took over.
Those readers interested in the details could do worse than read Chris Draper's accounts of the history of Freedom:
 northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2015/.../who-killed-freedom-unauthorised-history.html 
northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/.../who-killed-freedom-unauthorised-version.html
northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/.../who-killed-freedom-unauthorised-history_6.html
 northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/.../who-killed-freedom-unauthorised-history_7.html