The State of Israel, Chomsky & his critics

ON Sunday, a row broke out in Israel over the nation's refusal to let Noam Chomsky, a linguist and darling of the US left, to enter the West Bank from Jordan. Today an International Herald Tribune editorial stated: 'One does not have to be an ardent supporter of Chomsky in order to agree with his view that Israel is behaving like South Africa in the 1960s...' It seems Professor Chomsky was informed at a border crossing that 'Israel doesn't like what you say.' The International Herald Tribunal asks: 'Is this a reasonable pretext for a democratic state to detain someone for questioning or hold him up at the border?' But then the editorial asks: 'Who is this "Israel" that doesn't like what Chomsky says?' - 'The general public?' - 'The government?'

Ironically, in the year 2000 some of the people who later went on to found Northern Voices, had a bit of a run in with Professor Chomsky over things he didn't seem to like to hear regarding criticisms of his linguistics in a publication that was called 'The Alternative Raven: Chomsky & his Critics'. At that time Professor Chomsky seemed anxious that this publication was not published. More recently there has been a revival of interest in this publication and a suggestion that it be republished in an edited form.

Election: Everybody loses!!!

IN THE race in Through the Looking Glass the Red Queen declared 'everyone had won', but in the elections on the 6th, May, it was as if there had been a Black Queen who determined that 'everyone was a loser'. Even the election of the first Green MP at Brighton Pavilion didn't change the fact that the Greens got less votes than the BNP: who, in their turn, were crushed in their own most favourable areas. Even the anarchists with their 'Don't Vote' campaign couldn't claim success as the national turnout went up. The Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all but disappeared from the political radar and George Galloway failed to get a seat for his Respect Party. Meanwhile, the Labour Party was clearly defeated and the Tories didn't win either; doing particularly badly in Scotland and Northern Ireland. And yet, the Scottish Nationalists made no headway either, and the Lib-Dems lost seats despite popular poll ratings.

Tameside Gauleiter Voted Out!

Britain`s longest serving council leader, Councillor Roy Oldham, is expected to stand down as the leader of Tameside Council, in Greater Manchester, after losing a leadership election yesterday. It is believed that Councillor Kieran Quinn, from Droylsden, won the support of 27 out of 46 councillors who had assembled at the Stalybridge Labour Club on Sunday to elect the leader of the council.

Despite having led Tameside Council for the last 30 years, the 75 year old councillor, failed to win the support of the Stalybridge & Hyde constituency party earlier this year, who voted to back councillor Quinn - a decision which councillor Oldham likened to a 'slap in the face.'

Over the last 30 years, councillor Oldham, has managed to thwart many attempts to oust him as leader of the council, but last year, following the death of his wife and after being diagnosed with cancer, he said that he was 'minded to stand down' as leader. This precipitated the leadership battle to replace him.

News from Spain on the Trade Union reaction to the government's austerity plan

Translation official CCOO

Given the harsh Government's adjustment plan "CCOO TRADE UNION DON'T DISCARD ANY STAGE OF MOBILIZATION" Democracy loses, the Market wins. The Market executives, the managers of the speculative economy, the Central Banks chiefs. All of them haven't been chosen by citizenship. They have grown up in the shadow of power, the murky business of financial capitalism, or simply they have been designated by the Executive. They are the same people who caused the root of the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression and was accompanied by a radical liberal agenda (casino capitalism, unregulated market, speculative economy) and emerge again as a guide looking for the end of the crisis. "Those who caused the crisis mark the way out now," complains Toxo (former leader in CCOO). On Wednesday 12 May, President of the Spanish Government presented at the Congress an adjustment plan, bowing to market pressures and the European Union (EU); hitting pensioners, public employees, dependents and unemployed people. A package of measures obsessively directed to reduce public spending, while ignoring the necessary initiatives to increase revenue. One plan won't help to revive the economy and create jobs -indeed, recognized by the Government himself- and it will destroy the slight upturn in the economy, it will contract the consumption and it will make the recession longer. The stop on public investment ratifies this diagnosis.

REJECTION OF TRADE UNIONS

The european dimension of this economic and financial crisis has led to plans for adjustment at the European Union. But they have been late, and these adjustments has earned the rejection of workers everywhere. CCOO Public Area (Federation) will propose to the rest of the CCOO Trade Union organization movements that will culminate in a general strike in ALL public administrations (Government, regional and local).

From Emy of National Shop Stewards' Network

El Pais headline today reports Spain's 'Unions have limited their protest to a strike of civil servants' on the 2nd, June.

David Cameron's common touch

After the events of the past few days, we all need a bit of light relief, so what better way than to spend a few minutes taking in this re-working of Pulp's Common People.

PEOPLE'S CHARTER: Is this an alternative agenda or vain expectations?

This coming weekend the TUC Trade Union Councils' Conference 2010, will discuss the People's Charter. It calls for 'the nationalisation of banks, insurance and mortgage industries and an end to asset stripping, raids on pension funds and corporate tax loopholes.' It asks for 'more taxes on the rich; better and more jobs by [the State] investing to create employment, and a higher minimum wage; decent homes, no repossessions, rent control, and more funds for councils to build homes and buy empty properties; bringing energy, transport, water, post & communication under nationalisation; free heating & transport for pensioners, an end to child poverty & bring back education grants without fees; reintroduction of trade union rights; end cost of war & nuclear weapons, and cancel debts of poor of the planet.'

To bring about this lot, the motion says: 'it is noted that the TUC Congress 2009 agreed to build support for principles outlines in the Charter in workplaces & communities to help promote progressive policies in the Labour Party & [wait for it] to get a million signatures to show that the government must put people first. Trade Union Councils to collect a million UK signatures to show the Government it must put people first and to get MPs and local councillors, particularly but not exclusively those in the Labour Party, to back the People's Charter.'

These people haven't progressed since the 19th Century when the original Chartist Movement set out to appeal to the powers that existed then, with a petition. It represents a kind of strategy, but one that looks to the government (preferably a Labour Government) to set out an agenda, amended to include the above incoherent wish list: a potted program based on vain expectations and, in the present economic and political climate, a total illusion. A domestic colander so full of holes it is hardly worth serious consideration. It is such a weak effort, so lacking in intellectual rigour and analysis, that it merely demonstrates the absence of vision in the current UK labour movement.

TUC CONFERENCE BLACKLISTING MOTION

THE motion before this coming Saturday's TUC National Conference of Trade Union Councils in Blackpool, from Greater Manchester Association TUCs is as follows:

'Conference notes the exposure by the Information Commisioner of an illegal database/ blacklist managed by Ian Kerr and his subsequent conviction for this in July 2009 in the Knutsford Crown Court.

'Conference calls upon the TUC to seek to urge a future government to place legislation on the statute book that amends the Employment Relations Act (1999) to make all blacklisting illegal, where companies seek to deny employment on grounds of trade union activities, or industrial action, when these stoppages are the result of safety concerns by the workforce or refusal to undertake voluntary overtime.

'Furthermore, any regulations should provided automatic compensation to any worker who has been found to have been blacklisted and that once a blacklist is found the workers' affected should have an automatic right to be informed of the fact. also any regulations drawn up should be done so to specifically exclude the possibility of 'back door blacklisting' under the guise of devious recruitment practices.'

Greater Manchester County Association TUCs

A4E 'All 4 Emma' - Money for Old Rope!

According to a recent update by A4E (aka 'Action4Employment') of the 30,000 long-term unemployed who have been press-ganged into attending their 'Flexible New Deal' course, only 2,630 jobless have been supported into work since the scheme was launched six months ago. In an interview with the Guardian on 30th April, Emma Harrison - the CEO of the company, told the paper:

"It`s too early to measure the scheme`s success but I`m excited about the fact that 90% of those in jobs are staying in them for 13 weeks or longer - around double the level on the previous scheme." 

Last year A4E secured a 5 year £800 million contract to help run New Labour`s Flexible New Deal Scheme.

Wanabee an MP

Intro: Earlier this year an application for land at Springfield Park, Marland in Rochdale, for a Golf Driving Range was turned down. Recently there was a suggestion in the Rochdale Observer that there was to be a reapplication. What follows is possibly electioneering or wishful thinking or just tactics.

---

Yesterday Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem candidate for Rochdale South) targeted voters in the Marland area of Rochdale, with a leaflet claiming the unpopular plan to take over one half of Springfield Park to build a Golf Driving Range has been rejected. Not true of course! As the leaflet tells the story it's just a claim by another councillor (Irene Davidson, Lib Dem) that the Cabinet is going to reject the plan after the election. Interestingly local ward councillors, Ted and Pat Flynn, don't get a mention in the leaflet. I wonder why? Do they know a bird in the hand is always worth two in the bush?

Signed: SPUD.

Anthropology of British Hypocrisy continued

Did Rochdalian Duffy Duff-up politics?

LAST SATURDAY, Shakespeare's shortest play The Comedy of Errors was performed before a packed audience of hundreds at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, while over in Peace Square a May Day Rally of all of a hundred and odd, assembled in the sun beneath a sprinkling of red flags to hear someone called Ian Allenson, and a few others, tell us how awful the Tories and the BNP are. The play is about the chaotic consequences that occur when two pairs of twins are brought together: the politics of today is about what happens when you get political triplets in suits with only different coloured ties to distinguish them.

On Sunday, in The Observer, Nick Cohen, after asking Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls, 'why left-of-centre voters should stick with Labour rather than vote Liberal-democrat' was told: 'Well, if you vote Liberal Democrat you could let the Tories take power.' Nick Cohen went on to write: 'No appeal to idealism. No vision of the future, or offer of hope. No assertion that Labour had the vitality to govern Britain for another five years, and possessed better ideas and stronger morals than the superficially plausible Mr Clegg.' This morning, both Peter Hain and Ed Balls, two leading Labour strategists, have now come out and asked voters to vote tactically to keep the Tories out.

Damage limitation is all that seems to matter now, together with sound-bites and spin, and avoidance of gaffes. Principles, standards, ideas and ideals are not being given the time of day.

Two blokes I respect at the Manchester May Day Rally, last Saturday, told me that bumbler Brown made a mistake when he apologised to Gillian Duffy for describing her as a 'bigot'. Can they have read what she said?

Gillian Duffy from up Healey in Rochdale declared: 'The three main things what I had drummed in when I was a child was education, health service and looking after people who are vulnerable. But there are too many people now who aren't vulnerable but they can claim, and people who are vulnerable can't claim, can't get it.'


Gordon Brown responded: 'but they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to work.'

Gillian Duffy: 'You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're ... but all these eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?'

Since these words were uttered I've spoken to local women on the 471 & 17 buses that run between Bury and Manchester to Rochdale, and they have insisted that Mrs Duffy 'is only saying what others round here are thinking' or words to that effect.

Yet once in the 'privacy' of his car Gordon Brown's aide asked: 'What did she [Mrs Duffy] say?', to which Mr Brown replied: 'Everything, she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to vote Labour.'

But it turns out that Mrs Duffy wasn't so much offended by being called a 'bigot', as when Mr Brown referred to her as 'that woman'. To the middle-classes 'bigot' is an ugly word of French origin, but 'that woman' is a categorisation device which the English white working-classes in the North of England feel profoundly, because it puts them down or as Mrs Duffy has it: 'It's as if I'm to be brushed away.' 'BRUSHED AWAY', that is what has happened to the white working-classes in the North in recent decades. The word 'bigot' is just an insult and English workers are use to insults, they insult each other all the time with great glee: yet, 'that woman' does something fundamental by packaging her and reducing Mrs Duffy to a category to be disposed of, and in the same way, as a boy, I soon learned that women up North don't like being referred to as 'she' - they will say 'Who's She? The Cat's Mother?' Mr Brown is the son of a Presbyterian minister and those kind of middle-class people with their wagging fingers often refer to others in the third-person: it gives them a sense of superiority and control. One aspect of this is those fashionable political correct people on the left who say as one bloke, who I also respect in many ways, did recently that Northern Voices by publishing a portrait of a nude by the Rochdale artist Walter Kershaw on our current front cover was, in some way, exploiting women. He didn't say we were exploiting 'a woman' - in this case Heather Brown, the artist's model at Bury Art School - he said 'exploiting women': a category. The middle-classes use these kind of devices with blind abandon and in so doing 'brush away' others who they see as essentially inferior and beneath them.

Spanish Protests for Garzon & Victims of Franco

LAST SATURDAY, tens of thousands of protesters turned out on the streets of 21 Spanish towns and cities in support of Judge Baltasar Garzon, who faces suspension from the Spanish bench for having called for the opening of more than a dozen graves of people who were presumed to be Franco's victims, and for demanding the investigation of the 'crimes' of the Franco regime. By breaching the terms of a 1977 amnesty created during the transition to democracy, some magistrates argue that he overstepped his judicial mandate: in English law this would mean he acted ultra vires - beyond his powers.

Garzon's supporters claim he is being pursued by a right-wing gang, including member of the 'Fascist' Falange party and 'Manos Limpias' - a pseudo-sindicato (trade union), that have taken out writs against him. It was Garzon who, some years ago, forced the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, to act against Pinochet in this country. His actions on behalf of the victims of Franco has divided the Spaniards. The Spanish judges are highly political, and Garzon is no exception. Last Saturday, many of the demonstrators were calling for 'Mas juces como Garzon' ('More Judges like Garzon') and 'Garzon amigo, Espanaesta contigo!' (Garzon old mate, Spain is with you!').

Famous actors and actresses, like Juan Diego Botto, Jose Sacristan, Pilar Bardem and Charo Lopez, world famous film director Pedro Almodovar, and singer, Miguel Rios, backed the protest.

This is happening at a time when the Tameside Arts & Events Department in Greater Manchester, has recently 'deferred indefinitely' an application from Tameside Trade Union Council for a commemoration for James Keogh, a local youth who was killed in Spain by Italian troops supporting General Franco over 70 years ago, while fighting in the International brigade for freedom and democracy for the Spanish people [see Northern Voices 11]. This week, the English Judge, Lord Bingham said on Radio 4's 'Start the Week' that, in his view, the best judges are those that are unknown to the public. This shows us the difference between the Spanish mentality and that of the English: the Spaniard generally is more forthright, blunter and more open than his English counterpart; the English are more reserved, hypocritical and more restrained in the way they go about things. This thought possibly encouraged Christopher Caldwell in the FT to write: 'For all its impressive progress over the past three decades, Spain remains a country with an unsettled - and, by western standards of non-partisanship and impartiality, unimpressive - judicial tradition.' And referring to Garzon, he writes: 'It is no gain for international peace when a freelancer operating in such a system is permitted to make foreign policy for a dozen European countries, all of which have a better human rights record than Spain's over the last 60 years, as Garzon was permitted to do in the Pinochet case.'

Anthropology of British Hypocrisy

ROCHDALE EXPOSES BIGOTRY against White Working Class:

Folk on the streets of Rochdale are talking about yesterday's confrontation between Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy over immigration and bigotry. Seldom has the clash between the white working class and the lower middle class political elite been displayed so vividly. Seldom has political hypocrisy been put so bluntly.

This morning's International Herald Tribune described it thus: 'The encounter began mildly enough when Mr Brown, who has been told by his advisors to get out and do a better job of meeting ordinary people, went walkabout among voters in the depressed community of Rochdale, outside Manchester.' But el Bruto Brown is not safe to out on the streets! Hence, guided by his handlers, he was led to meet 66-year-old Gillian Duffy, who challenged him on immigration, the main worry of the white workers of the North. Brown buttered her up before the cameras, then jumped into a waiting car to be sped away only to moan: 'That was a disaster', saying that his aides 'should never have put me with that woman ...' Whereupon, he claimed that Mrs Duffy was 'just a sort of a bigoted woman ...'

My dictionary says a 'bigot' is 'a person of strong conviction or prejudice, especially in matters of religion, race or politics, who is intolerant of those who differ from him.' Judging from Mr Brown's reaction, once in the car, that would seem to sum up his attitude and moreover, it would appear to reflect the spirit of the British political class as a whole, because politics in this country is dominated by the middle classes. They all, including much of the British left, look down on the likes of the Mrs Duffy's of this world, if the truth be known. Does the prejudice of these British middle class politicians know no bounds that they need to belittle Lancashire people and their opinions thus? God help us from the pseudo-tolerance of these educated middle class politicians.

Unite Union

The Unite Unions decision to bankroll the Labour Party to the tune of 11 million pounds in my view is the final straw. I have torn up my union card in utter revulsion at the behaviour of the Union leadership and urge all anarchists and anarcho syndicalists to evaluate the role of trade unions as a bulwark of capitalism. What conceivable purpose can be served by continuing to remain or work within such morally and politically bankrupt organisations. The time has surely come for all radicals to consider alternative forms of grass roots organisation. The trade union movement in Britain is moribund and offers no prospect of transforming society.

Barry

UNITE UNION THROWS '£4 Million' at LABOUR PARTY

LAST NIGHT, at a meeting at Rochdale's Catholic Club on Ann Street, addressed by Jerry Hicks - a candidate for general secretary of Unite the Union - discussing the forthcoming General Election and the plight of the trade unions, the blacklisted electrician Colin Trousdale, member of Unite, said that he had not paid his political levy for 10 years. It also emerged that it was suspected that Unite had recently paid out an estimated '£4 million' of their members' money to the Labour Party. This has not been confirmed but it is clear the union is investing millions in the Labour Party.

Jerry Hicks stated that though he did not favour disaffiliation of the union from the Labour Party, he thought the Unite should be more discriminating to whom the money was paid. MPs sympathetic to the unions should get the money. Others at the meeting, some former members, expressed disappointment in the way the Labour Party was evolving and felt that it was beyond repair: beyond saving. Concern was expressed about the lack of support from Derek Simpson, the current Unite general secretary, for the British Airways' workers, the Vestas dispute on the Isle of Wight and the conflict at Lindsey Oil Refinery last year.

Others were angry about the failure of Unite to launch an internal investigation given the clear evidence of collaboration by officers of Amicus (now merged into Unite with the T&G) in the enforcement of the blacklist in the building trade and in the identification of militants. Jerry Hicks argued that: 'The union is run like a business, not a service', claiming 'there's a massive divide between the union leadership and members.'

It was also revealed by one at the meeting that the current general secretary of Unite, Derek Simpson, a former fitter from Sheffield, had developed a taste for the good life. Not only was he ensconced with a lady, a former director of legal services for Unite, in a grace & favour home at Gerrald's Cross, but he had taken to staying at the Waldolf Hotel when in London. While there on one occassion it was reported that he complained about the towels being 'too hard' and had had them changed for something softer on the skin.

LIVING IN HOPES

The political agenda & the unions

A LETTER yesterday from the joint general secretaries of the UNITE union, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, to their members states: 'This general election is the most important since 1997', but that it is 'not a referendum on 13 years of a Labour government.' They say: 'the only choice for the union at this election is to back Labour.' They claim: 'The Tories will attack the unions on our ability to organise, our right to take industrial action and our rights at work ...' Nowhere here is there any suggestion that a Labour government will reinstate the trade union rights and freedoms that existed before Thatcher removed them in the 1980s and 90s.

Yet, two months ago in the Feb/March issue of UNITE's 'workplace Reporter', these same joint general secretaries admitted that 'Gradually [under Labour governments], the right to strike is being eroded, removing from employees one of the few weapons they have to make the bad employers see sense.' They further speculate: 'We know the Tories will do nothing to change this.' They urge: 'With Labour back in office Unite will certainly be pushing to have industrial relations taken out of the hands of the judges, and for unions to have their rights restored.'

There is no promise of restoring trade union rights in the Labour manifesto and all Simpson and Woodley could say in February was 'We believe that Labour's manifesto will offer them [positive reasons to support Labour] and will make a shift towards the values of traditional social democracy.' Gosh! At least Tony Blair had the grace to offer us something 'New' in 'New Labour'; all these general secretaries are promising is something old and 'traditional'.

The biggest weakness of the British left today is its conservatism. They who stop while society moves on will be trampled. Trade union bosses, like Simpson and Woodley, and the left in general, display a kind of wishful thinking. A recent critic of the subservience of 15 trade unions, representing 4.45 million workers, who are still affiliated to Labour has written: 'rather than take the attitude of "better the devil you know", or supporting the party whose cuts will be least, the unions together could have influenced the entire political agenda by moving the centre of gravity away from neo-liberalism ...'

Where, in all this, is any serious program for change? Where's any vision? Or any alternative agenda?

Last night's debate between the main political leaders on SKY TV sounded like a squabble between bosses over how to run a firm. Today's political leaders no longer have an ideal to work for. They are merely living on the accomplishments of their ancestors, and all that raises our spirits now is a hatred of politics and politicians. Today's trade unions [and Unite is the biggest] have a membership of about 7 million, bigger than any other voluntary organisations, but what they have in quantity they lack in quality and intellectual gravitas. Consequently, all the likes of Simpson and Woodley and others in the trade union movement can do is to live in hopes.

Purnell & Mandelson accused of a stitch-up in Stalybridge!

Since being selected as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Stalybridge and Hyde (Surprise, Surprise,) Jonny Reynolds, a 29-year-old trainee solicitor, has been busily trying to put some distance between himself and his former pal James Purnell MP, who is standing down at the next election.

As we reported previously, Mr Reynolds, was initially dumped by a Labour NEC special selection panel and was not put on the original shortlist of candidates after it was claimed that he'd 'performed poorly.' Although the rules do not allow for an appeal once the panel had decided the shortlist, Lord Mandelson and Purnell demanded that Reynolds be put back on the shortlist. This has now led to charges of a stitch-up and threats of resignation from leading local Labour Party activists.

Earlier this week, Tribune quoted a local activist (who asked not to be named) as saying: "The whole process stank so much that many would-be voters wanted no part in the proceedings. Worse still, several local members plan to resign from the party following the election whatever the result. One calling the selection of Reynolds 'an absolute disgrace', says he does not want to be in a party 'led by Peter Mandleson' who many blame for forcing Reynolds on them." Tribune also reported that CLP Secretary, David Moore, is also considering his position after 25 years in the Labour Party.

'Can tha' keep a Secret?' - An old Yorkshire tale of class war, conspiracy, murder …and a nice day out! by Chris Draper

(Due to an editing error in the latest issue of Northern Voices, we've accidentally 'cropped' an article by valued contributor Chris Draper. We hope we can make up for this mistake - to both Chris and our readers - by reproducing the article in full on the blog. The introduction follows and the rest of the article can be read after the 'read more' link below)

In February 1812 at the Shears Inn, Hightown, West Yorkshire a secret meeting of working men took place in an upstairs room. The talk was of desperate measures, how could croppers defend themselves, their families and their community from the destitution wrought by the cloth masters? The men determined to stop the new shearing machines being imported into the Spen Valley. They planned an all out campaign of direct action. A campaign that would climax with an armed assault on Rawfolds Mill and a notorious attempt by the local vicar to force an injured Luddite to reveal the names of his fellow conspirators…

Northern Voices 11 - now available

The long awaited 11th issue of Northern Voices is now available. Contents include:

'Villains & Victims' - the contrasting fortunes of villainous Northern MPs (including James Purnell, Hazel Blears, Tom Levitt & Phil Woolas) and their victims such as 'regenerated' communities in Derker and Toxteth, Blacklisted workers Keaveney & Anderson & agency binmen in Bury.

'On the banks of the River Roch, Jacky Brook, Healey Dell in Rochdale & the Cheonggyecheon in Seoul' by Brian Bamford

'Leeds: Royal Park School - More Municipal Vandalism by Stealth' by John Lawrence

'Six o' Best: Northern Tea Time Treats' by Chris Draper - featuring Eccles Cakes from Salford or maybe, Hebden Bridge; Fat Rascals from Harrogate; Sad Cakes from Burnley; Chorley Cakes from North Lancs.; Bakewell Tarts from Derbyshire; Curd Tarts from the West Riding of Yorkshire; Singing Hinnies from Newcastle and Yorkshire Parkin.

'Glossop North End go to Wembley on a shoestring' by Richard Holland

'Can tha' keep a secret?: An old Yorkshire tale of class war, conspiracy, murder' by Christopher Draper; a history of Ned Ludd in the West Riding of Yorkshire (which can be read in full here).

'The Golden Days of Municipal Motoring' by Chris the Clippy on the disappearance of the North's regional buses and their unique colour schemes.

...plus much more. Also included are the usual local columns (Salford Spy, Tameside Eye), plus restaurant reviews (Sam's Chop House in Manchester and The Plate @ Backridge in the Forest of Bowland), exhibition reviews, the lively letters page, plus an obituary for Pedro Cuadrado, a Bolton local of Spanish origin, involved in the Spanish Civil War and imprisoned by the Nazis, Americans and the British in turn.

Price £1.50 [£2.00 post included] cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' obtainable from c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.

And on sale at a large number of newsagents in Greater Manchester, Rochdale, Tameside, Salford, Swinton, Eccles, Burnley and bookshops in other areas such as News From Nowhere in Liverpool, Bob's Bookshop in Oldham and Bookcase in Hebden Bridge, as well as The Cornerhouse and People's History Museum in Manchester. Northern Voices is also on sale in Glossop at Bay Tree Books, George Street Books and Bestsellers in the Market Arcade.

Hegel or Wittgenstein: The Patria Chica & its enemies

NORTHERN VOICES 11, out next week, features a clash involving Eccles Cakes, Curd Tarts & Yorkshire Rascals over a philosophical point made by Ludwig Wittgenstein who said to his friend Maurice Drury (see Ray Monk's autobiography: 'Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius') that 'Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same ... Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different.' Wittgenstien was, like Tolstoy a critic of Shakespeare, yet he was considering embellishing one of his philosophical books with the motto taken from a phrase the Earl of Kent uses in 'King Lear' (Act 1, scene iv): 'I will teach you differences'. Ray Monk writes of Wittgenstein: 'His concern was to stress life's irreducible variety'. The opening editorial in Northern Voices 1 backed Wittgenstein's view over that of Hegel.

In a letter to NV10 our Midland correspondent, Rachel Whittaker wrote: 'Do we not seek to exploit the common thread of humanity or is our idea of equality based on the idea that some geographical locations make you more friendly, more reserved, or even more anarchist, than others?' Well, if Rachel is right to argue against geographical locations and the variety of human peculiarities that go with them, then how do we explain the flowering of something so anthropologically strange as anarchism occurring in Andalucia or anarcho-syndicalism in Barcelona and Catalonia in the 20th Century? How do we explain Makhno and Zapata in the Ukraine and Mexico? All of these movements had strong elements of the patria chica, and the cultural and regional diversity that goes with it.

One solution may be thought to be Colin Ward's analysis of universal anarchism suggesting that anarchism, far from being anthropologically strange, is really commonplace and can be found all over the show in many social settings, as the seed beneath the snow. And yet, even this doesn't necessarily support the homogenious 'common thread' position as proposed by Rachel Whittaker, because examples of Colin Ward's micro-anarchism, just as much as the macro-anarchism of Spain, Mexico and the Ukraine, all have their own diversity and 'irreducible variety'.

With these things in mind NV11 goes in search of the NORTHERN STOMACH as represented in Chris Draper's 'Six O' Best Northern Tea Time Treats', asking how for instance, does it differ from a Spanish Stomach or a Southern Stomach, and are we betraying our northern souls as well as our stomachs by enjoying ethnic cuisine and foreign food?

BRADFORD ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR

TODAY the Bradford bookfair took place at the 1-in-12, with about seven stalls including Bob Jones' Northern Herald Books; the Cunningham Amendment & Anarchist Voices; AK Press; SolFed; AF; Antifa; Northern Voices & Northern Anarchist Network. A good response and atmosphere: sales bucked-up in the afternoon with NV going well and the Spanish memorabilia doing best. A flyer was distributed advertising the prospect of a forthcoming NAN at the 1-in-12 in June.