Orwell & the Americans.

 

The American military authorities in Europe, rounded up all the copies of George Orwell's novella Animal Farm that they could find and turned them over to the Red Army to be burned.

George Orwell was the first to use the phrase 'The Cold War' in print. Eastern Europe had the appearance of a "New Class" system with gross privileges for the ruling elite and grinding mediocrity of existence for the majority. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had a meeting with Zhou Enlai just before the Sino-Soviet split. He told the Chinaman,

"I am the son of coal miners and you are the son of feudal mandarins. We have nothing in common." "Perhaps we do", murmured his Chinese antagonist. "What?" blustered Khrushchev. Zhou responded, "We are both traitors to our class " (Christopher Hitchens - Arguably)

The CIA secretly bought the film rights to Animal Farm and altered the ending of the film so that the pigs, who represent the communists, were overthrown by the other animals on the farm. 

Orwell & the Communists in Spain.

 

Bob Edwards MP

George Orwell spent six months in Spain and got shot through the neck on the Aragon front. His wife, Eileen, also went to Spain. Both of them were involved with a Marxist group called the POUM. The Communists denounced the POUM as Trotskyists and planned to liquidate them. I believe Orwell and his wife were on the death list. They were being spied on and there were NKVD agents working in the POUM offices in Barcelona.

These were not idle threats because the Stalinists had murdered the POUM leader, Andres Nin. Orwell and his wife fled Spain not because of Franco, but to get away from the communists who were murdering Republicans. Orwell never forgot or forgave this treachery.

Orwell was never really popular with the British communists.  They didn't like him because he was an Etonian with a posh accent and fought with the anti-Stalinist POUM. They thought he was in Spain to get material for a book. One person called him a "supercilious bastard" and the CPGB leader, Harry Pollitt, from Droylsden, accused Orwell of slumming it. The POUM had fraternal affiliations with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and Orwell was in the ILP.

Bob Edwards, who also fought with the POUM, had mixed feelings about Orwell, but he didn't doubt his bravery under fire. Edwards became a Labour MP and was later exposed as a KGB British agent by the Soviet defector, Oleg Gordievsky. As a youth, Edwards had met both Stalin and Trotsky in the Soviet Union in 1926. Edwards received in secret, the Soviet Union's third highest medal, the 'Order of the People's Friendship'.

Orwell's book, 'Homage to Catalonia', is probably the book that most British people encounter when they first read about the Spanish Civil War. Having read books on Spain by the historian Paul Preston, I was struck by his determination to trash the reputation of Orwell when it comes to his personal account about the Spanish Civil War. Orwell wasn't a professional historian, but he fought in Spain and lived through those events, and Preston didn't. 

The Russians say they have no plans to invade other countries in Europe, but NATO is talking up plans for a war against Russia.

 

The Russians say they have no plans to invade other European countries, but I remember Putin saying that he had no plans to invade the Ukraine and then they tried to take Kiev in February 2022, but got bogged down and had to turn back. The Russian invasion was a complete fiasco and that didn't go unnoticed. That Russian convoy stretched back for many miles and they would have been sitting ducks for any country with a decent air force or a missile system. Although the Ukraine as a Jewish President, Putin called it a "special operation' aimed at the denazification of the Ukraine.

Is it really credible that Putin would want to extend this war into a war against the rest of Europe? I don't believe for moment that most Russians feel threatened by NATO, but many eastern European countries, feel threatened by Russia. Putin certainly wants to destabilize Europe and he must be rubbing his hands with glee, in the way in which, he's managed to drive a wedge between Europe and America. However, I think Trump's isolationism and is MAGA movement, is more responsible for that.

The Russians have struggled to get anywhere in the Ukraine and that war has been going on since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea. The Russians are now using troops from North Korea. When Russia annexed the Crimea, most European countries did nothing. Denmark has called Donald Trump a security threat and Trump definitely seems to be dancing to Putin's tune. NATO is now talking up a war against Russia, but for the last 80 years, Europe has relied on American military might for its security. Under Donald Trump, America is no longer a reliable ally and the transatlantic alliance, has never looked more fragile. NATO is effectively American military power and if that can't be relied on, then NATO is nothing.

In Britain, the Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems to be itching to drag Britain into the war raging in the Ukraine. Both Starmer and his Labour government are so unpopular that they're desperate for a diversion and Starmer is clinging on to power. It's a 'Wag the Dog' scenario.

It's not that many weeks ago, that we were being told that in the event of a full-scale war, Britain would run out of ammunition within ten days. Russia does have many nuclear weapons and so do other European countries, but I don't think there's any winners in a nuclear war. It's mutually assured self-destruction.

Is social housing in Tameside being allocated on the basis of economic apartheid?

 

The housing developer Bankfoot APM has submitted plans to build 102 homes on land owned by the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

The development (see above), is to take place on a four-acre site off Harrop Street, Market Street and Chapel Street in Stalybridge and will comprise 44 town houses and 58 apartments. Although the developers say that all the homes will be "affordable" (at mid-market rent levels), the allocation of housing on this project seems to be discriminatory because the new homes are to be targeted on young families, key workers and young professionals. This was the criteria that was used to allocate housing when they opened the Summers Quay project in Stalybridge.

Obviously, pensioners, those in urgent need of housing and those on state benefits are lesser citizens and are not part of the criteria when it comes to allocating housing on this project. 

The big shots who run local authorities like Tameside Council, talk a lot of humbug about diversity, equality and inclusivity, but when it comes to the allocation of new housing in Tameside, we seem to have economic apartheid. The scheme is the first phase of the wider Stalybridge West masterplan being promoted by Tameside Council. 

Starmer blames the benefit system for youth unemployment.

 

Britain's lame duck Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, thinks the benefit system is responsible for trapping young people into unemployment. He also thinks they suffer from a "poverty of aspiration." Automation and AI is likely to make a lot more people jobless and lead to displacement as machines replace workers.  It will also lead to a reduction in aggregate national income as people lose their incomes. This will lead to more business closing and more unemployment.

Hospitality offers a lot of entry level jobs to young people, but increased business costs are now leading to cuts in staff hours and a freeze on recruitment as existing employees are expected to do more for the same money. According to press reports, there has been an increase in the use of temporary workers.

Pubs in Britain are closing at a colossal rate. What I see on a daily basis in my part of Britain, is a lot of under-employment. Supermarkets with nobody working on the checkout tills because they've now introduced self-service machines and made shop lifting easier. Post offices having to close early because of staff shortages since they've been privatised. You make a phone call about a utility bill, and you could be talking to somebody in Timbuktu or an automaton. You phone for a taxi and you're talking to someone in Mumbai who hasn't a clue about the geography of the area.

Too many useful machines leads to too many useless people. If people can't make an income who is going to buy the goods that capitalist wants to sell? It's a contradiction of capitalism. What might be needed is a universal unconditional citizens basic income.

The People of the Abyss - Jack London

 

I read the book 'The People of the Abyss', many years ago. It is Jack London's account of several weeks that he spent living in the East End of London in 1902. I think he described walking down Mile End Road with two unemployed men. Every now and then, one man would bend down to pick something up off the pavement. Jack London thought he was picking up fag ends, but it turned out to be bits of food which he would put in his mouth. He saw people covered in small pox pustules.

As an American from California, I suspect that Jack London would be a far healthier specimen than many of the working-class Londoner's that he encountered. We shouldn't forget that in 1902, Britain was one of the richest countries in the world but many of its people lived in abject poverty. It was paradise for 30,000 and hell for 30,000,000, and it didn't have a problem with boat people.

"To hell or Connaught", Cromwell in Manchester and Ireland.

 

Massacre at Drogheda

Oliver Cromwell's statue in Manchester city centre was removed in 1968 ostensibly because of road development. Some believe that it was removed because it was vandalised and there were demands for it to be removed. The Irish community also found it offensive. I believe it was taken to Wythenshawe Park, where it now resides.  Out of sight out of mind.

They've kept Cromwell's statue outside the House of Commons. Not long ago there was an exhibition about Cromwell in London which was entitled "warts and all." I believe there was no mention of Cromwell's campaign in Ireland. Some years ago, I was watching Michael Portillo's railway journeys in Ireland. He stopped off at Drogheda, but he never mentioned the massacre that took place there in 1641. After the garrison at Drogheda refused to surrender, they were given no quarter and Cromwell ordered that people be put to the sword. It's said that the governor of Drogheda, Sir Arthur Aston, an English royalist, was beaten to death with his own wooden leg. Many fled into St Peter's Church to avoid being killed, scurrying up the church steeple. Cromwell ordered that the church to be set on fire. Cromwell wrote that he thought a hundred people died in that church. He admitted that many civilians including women and clergymen had been killed, either shot at in error, or out of cruelty. In a letter to speaker Lenthall, Cromwell wrote:

"I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town...I think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men." He told Lenthall that what had happened "was the righteous judgement of God upon those barbarous wretches and that it would prevent the effusion of blood for the future." Colonel John Hewson, a parliamentary officer, claimed that there must have been 3,000 bodies lying in the streets of Drogheda, of whom, he thought, 150 were his comrades.

Cromwell's behaviour in Ireland has never been forgotten or forgiven. The deaths and loses in Ireland following the invasion of 1649, were catastrophic. Many more died in those wars than had died in the English civil wars of the 1640s - if not from fighting, then from subsequent plague and starvation. The Irish Catholics were given the choice of either being killed or deported to Connaught, when Cromwell sought to seize Irish lands for English and Protestant settlers. Many died in the brutal migration. "To hell or Connaught", is attributed to Cromwell. 

Starmer blames the benefit system for youth unemployment.

 

Keir Starmer

Britain's lame duck Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, thinks the benefit system is responsible for trapping young people into unemployment. He also thinks they suffer from a "poverty of aspiration."

Automation and AI is likely to make a lot more people jobless and lead to displacement as machines replace workers.  It will also lead to a reduction in aggregate national income as people lose their incomes. This will lead to more business closing and more unemployment. Hospitality offers a lot of entry level jobs to young people, but increased business costs is now leading to cuts in staff hours and a freeze on recruitment as existing employees are expected to do more for the same money. Pubs in Britain are closing at a colossal rate.

What I see on a daily basis in my part of Britain, is a lot of under-employment. Supermarkets with nobody working on the checkout tills because they've now introduced self-service machines and made shop lifting easier. Post offices having to close early because of staff shortages since they've been privatised. You make a phone call about a utility bill, and you could be talking to somebody in Timbuktu or an automaton. You phone for a taxi and you're talking to someone in Mumbai who hasn't a clue about the geography of the area.

Too many useful machines leads to too many useless people. If people can't make an income who is going to buy the goods that capitalist wants to sell? It's a contradiction of capitalism. What might be needed is a universal, unconditional, citizens basic income.

Did financial market liberalisation lead to the 2008 financial crash?

 

A country like Britain is governed by people who are amateurs and who have not only never run a company, but really don't have much of an idea, about the working lives of ordinary people, because many of them have never had a proper job in their lives.

There isn't one type of capitalism but variations of it. You will find worker participation and co-determination in both Sweden and Germany. There are worker directors on the boards of many companies in both these countries and there is a high level of trade union membership.

Since the 1980s, the countries with the most marked increase in income inequality have been the U.K. and the U.S. which led the world in pursuing pro-rich policies - tax cuts for the rich, privatization and deregulation. Markets are routinely rigged in favour of the rich and there is mis-selling of financial products and lies told to regulators. Money gives the super-rich the power to legally or illegally buy up politicians and political offices.

The financial crash in 2008, that nearly brought the whole capitalist financial system to its knees, was man-made and didn't arise from any war or economic slump. Many blamed it on easy credit and sub-prime lending, but a lot of the blame lies with the deregulation of financial markets and a belief in something called the "Efficient Markets Hypotheses" that made policy-makers believe that financial markets needed no regulation. The 2008 financial crises was presaged by many earlier smaller crises following radical financial market liberalization. 

The politics of Nigel Farage.

 

Nigel Farage

Occasionally, Nigel Farage does say something honest. He did say, "Politicians? Let's face it, they're all wankers, the lot of them." When he was the leader of UKIP, he described himself as a "Thatcherite." After Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013, Farage said that he was the only politician "keeping the flame of Thatcherism alive." He's also said that Vladimir Putin is the world leader that he most admires "as an operator."

An inquiry into the death of the ex-Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210 by two Russian agents, concluded that his murder was 'probably' approved by Vladimir Putin. Nathan Gill, the former Welsh leader of Reform UK, has just been jailed for over ten years for taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements. I would be surprised, if many people who support Reform UK, actually know what their policies are. Reform UK are definitely committed to massively reducing public spending and some think they're a threat to the NHS and would introduce an American-style insurance system. 

Britain's class divide: the Cutteslowe Walls of Oxford.

 

Cutteslowe Walls Oxford

The English nationalism of people like Rupert Lowe, the former Reform UK MP, hardly bears scrutiny. I don't feel I have anything in common with Rupert Lowe at all. I'm not a multimillionaire and didn't go to a public school like Radley College.

Is there really such a thing as a British national identity? Have we all got the same identical interests - socially, politically, economically? Very often the British can't get on with one another. Regional and social class identities are often stronger in England than a British national identity. We have the Scouser, Geordie and the Tyke. A Scottish lorry driver, who once gave me a lift, said to me that as far as he was concerned, you could bomb everything south of Birmingham.

The Irish author and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, wrote: "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

In North Oxford, the Cutteslowe Walls, stood for a quarter of a century before they were demolished in 1959. They were built on an estate in an area known as Summertown, to divide the English middle-class residents from the working-class residents. The walls were seven feet high and topped with rotating iron spikes.

They say that in Berwick upon Tweed, some of the inhabitants consider themselves Scottish and some identify as English. Some inhabitants don't identify with either and consider themselves 'Berwickers' first.

Richard Cromwell

 

Richard Cromwell

They didn't fight the English civil war to behead a king, abolish monarchy, or to introduce democracy. General Thomas Fairfax, the leader of England’s ‘New Model Army’ claimed that he was fighting “to maintain the rights of the crown and kingdom jointly”, and for a King who would heed the advice of Parliament. We know from the transcripts of the Putney debates what Cromwell and Henry Ireton felt about manhood suffrage.

Cromwell called the execution of King Charles I, “a cruel necessity.” They felt that they had no choice because of the Kings intransigence and his refusal to bow to the will of Parliament. Oliver Cromwell ruled for less than a decade. He was constantly suspending Parliament because of factionalism. In March 1653, Cromwell staged a military coup. He accused MPs of corruption, procrastination and self-interest. He called some “whoremasters and others were drunkards.” They made him Lord Protector on December 16, 1653, when he was already Lord General.

At one period the country was ruled by Cromwell's Major Generals, who were very unpopular. The Major Generals were instructed to root out sin, discipline the nation, reform its manners and provide for the poor. They cracked down on blasphemy, swearing, drinking, adultery. They banned horse racing, bear baiting and cockfights.

Oliver Cromwell died in September 1658, and was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell. Richard Cromwell was nicknamed 'Queen Dick' and 'Tumble-down Dick'. He was seen as a weak leader and he didn't have the support of the army. He abdicated as Lord Protector on 25 May 1659, and fled to France to avoid his creditors. As a visiting Englishman, Richard Cromwell, was once invited to dine with Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, who was unware of who he was. The prince questioned Cromwell about the affairs in England and remarked:

“Well, that Oliver, tho’ he was a traitor and a villain, was a brave man, had great parts, great courage, and was worthy to command; but that Richard, that coxcomb and poltroon, was surely the basest fellow alive; what is become of that fool?” Cromwell replied, “He was betrayed by those he most trusted, and who had been most obliged by his father.”

When he returned to England in 1680, his wife Dorothy, had died. He lived out his days in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire and used the name, John Clarke. He died in 1712, aged 85. Although King Charles I, executed or sought to capture the Regicides, he didn’t go after Cromwell's son because he hadn't signed the death warrant.

Former Reform UK Welsh leader jailed for ten years for bribery.

 

Although many British politicians are suspected of being on the take, it's almost unheard of to charge and convict a British politician with bribery. Nevertheless, they've just given a 10-and-a-half-year jail sentence to Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK Welsh leader, for taking financial Russian bribes.

Gill, 52, from Llangefni, Anglesey, pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery. As an MEP, and a key member of UKIP and Brexit party groups, he was paid by an alleged Russian asset, Oleg Voloshyn, to make pro-Russian speeches. Voloshyn, who is wanted for treason in the Ukraine, had described Gill's work as "outstanding." A Reform UK spokesman said they welcomed the sentence that Nathan Gill had received and described his actions as "reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable."

Although the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has said in the past that Vladimir Putin is the world leader that he most admires, praising his skills "as an operator", he described Gill as a 'bad apple" who had betrayed him. The police believe that Gill was primarily motivated by financial need, but they also said that he had sympathy with the positions that he was being bribed to take. There have been calls for Farage's party to launch a thorough investigation to guarantee that pro-Russia links are rooted out of Reform UK.

Over many years, there have been numerous press reports about Russian money being used to finance anti-EU, ultra conservative, and far-rights groups, throughout Europe, with the aim of destabilising Europe. In France, the former political party Front Nationale, led by Marine Le Pen, is known to have accepted Russian money.

Sentencing Gill at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said the former Reform UK Welsh leader, had betrayed trust placed in him by the public and had "advanced narratives advantageous to Russian interests concerning the Ukraine." Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "A traitor was at the very top of Reform UK, aiding and abetting a foreign adversary. Nigel Farage and his party are a danger to national security."