The Barnsby Blog

Margaret Bunting’s assertion that our leading journalists and broadcasters have been providing the illegal and racist war in Iraq and elsewhere with intellectal cover (Guardian 22 May) is paralleld by my 14 attempts to get Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark to reply to my charge of their failure to challenge Blair. As I have stated, it is almost impossible to conceive of such arrogance in what is still (just) a democratic county.

This ties up with the very considerable support among Tories who opposed the war in Iraq ranging from Kenneth Clarke to David Cameron albeit rather reluctantly who must oppose the war if he is to have any chance of winning the next election.

Into this melee steps Geoffrey Wheatcroft with a marvellous article in the Guardian (May 10)entitled ‘They should come out as imperialist and proud of it’ but which I have called ‘Tory lessons in Marxist Economics’, addressed to the newly founded Euston Group consisting of both pro-Iraq war and anti-war supporters. Geoffrey has unearthed the sayings of AJP Taylor, left-wing historian who wrote, ‘Europeans instinctively believed than Europe had achieved the highest form of civilisation ever known which was its duty to export throughout the world’. This exactly covers the beliefs of the Euston Group. Plenty of references to global matters, but all within the their beliefs, impregnated as they are by 300 years of exposure to British imperialism that in the west society is democratic, while the rest of the world is not. Such beliefs must necessarily be held if both supporters and opponents of the Iraq war are to co-exist and demand not the end of the war, but support for the so-called Arab government that at present controls some of Baghdad and precious little else.

To muddy the waters stll further,  Martin Jacques, one time editor of Marxism Today, who has steeped himself in Chinese culture by living there suggests in an article in the Guardian (May 25) that the turning point in world history came in 1978 the year that Deng Xiaoping introduced his open-door reforms in China which resulted in a quarter of a century of annual double-digit growth and  the economic transformation of China. The ramifications are enormous. The era of western and USA domination will disappear. History will be lived and thought of in terms of Chinese values as well as South American socialism and Indian values (already dominated in the South and Calcutta by Communist Parties).

Such is a glimpse of the future and it offers nothing for Euston Groups or the armchair warriors of Fleet Street.

The George Barnsby Working Class Library and Free Communist Bookshop is proud to embrace the future.

I wrote a short history of the origins of Wolverhampton Communist Party from 1920 some years ago which was published in the W’ton Ad News when the party dissolved itself and became the Democratic Left.

I also wrote thumbnail sketches of members of the N.E. W’ton branch of the Party from the 1940s. These included Cliff Corfield the barber who had the Daily Worker in his barbers shop every day and Ray and Marion George which I cannot, at present, find.

New interest in the history of the local Communist Party stems from the sad death of Marion who for many years suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and whose memorial service I recently attended.

Much of the history of the Party after 1945 evolves round Norman Bennett who was the first Party member to stand in local elections when he stood for Staffordshire County Council March 5th 1946 describing himself in his election address as VicePresident of the W’ton Trades Council, a member of the AEU and chairman of the Tettenhall Communist Party.

His mantle was taken over by his son Max Bennett, a remarkable member of the Party who rose every morning before 5 o’clock, served in the cafe in the Market that he inherited from his father until after breakfast was served and worked for the rest of the day as an unpaid agent of the CP where he became successively the secretary of the South Staffs District of the Party and then secretary of the W’ton Party. Max was cheerful and witty, made me laugh and was an inspiration to work with. Not the least of his remarkable feats was taking quite literally the policy of building a mass party by enrolling a large number of members of his own family and acquaintances including Jack Henson. Max, alas is not very fit these days, but we would hope he and others will co-operate in writing a more detailed history of the local Party.

Another remarkable Party member was Frank Ward secretary of Meadow’s factory branch of the Party, who became the first Communist to serve on the W’ton Education Committee. He moved south, wrote his own autobiography which was discursive without too much about the Party. Both his son and daughter joined the Party for a short time. I wonder what happened to them?

Another important member was Ted Jarvis of the factory branch of Boulton Paul which had a continuous existence through the second World War and was ruined by the News of the World which ran a spy scare story during the Cold War of Communists in the Armaments industry. Ted left the Communist Party and became a big-wig in the British Legion and at his funeral, which Max Bennett attended, he was astonished to learn, was a massive Legion affair. Jock Cowan, who was secretary of the branch, and his wife Ann, are still politically active at Telford in the pensioners and peace movements.
With these introductory remarks, I am at present going through my files and to date I have unearthed the following on Labour and Party History material:

1. The Re-formation of the Dudley Trades Council in 1916.
2. Correspondence with Ken Purchase on what constitutes the Black Country.
3. Early Labour MPs in the Black Country.
4. Was there ever the possibility of a Workers’ Revolution in Britain.
5. Oct ‘98 letter on what would have been the 81st’ anni. Of Soviet Union.
6. Personal Notes by GB June 1999 after the collapse of Diversity 2000.
7. Notes on formation GB W.C.Lib & Free Communist Bookshop 2000
8. W’ton CP 1963 The Future of Education in Wolverhampton.
9. Comments on the nature of World War II at History Group meeting.
10. Much material from 1970s and 1980s for Wolverhampton e.g. Annual reports, monthly programmes of meetings etc.

GEORGE BARNSBY

Dear Des

Sorry I didn’t see you at the May Day festival.

Of Pendeford I would say that I excavated the route of the Roman road at Pendeford with pupils from Etheridge Secondary School in years gone by. Let me say that excavations by school pupils are very rare. One by Sec.Mod. kids unique.  Is that part of Socialism? As far as the inhabitants of Pendeford in Roman times are concerned they were so few that I doubt that they led uprisings against the Romans, but you never know. Keep digging and probing!

For modern Pendeford there was a factory branch at Pendeford of very long standing at Boulton Paul. It was established before World War II and the shop stewards played an important part in increasing production during the war and in agitating for a Second Front to assist our ally the Soviet people. The branch continued until the Cold War when the People ran an unscrupulous campaign to smear the Communist Party members of the branch as subversives, terrorists in modern Blairite talk

I have written about this in the past and it will be featured in my forthcoming Summer 2006 BLOG. There are also two members of the branch still active that you might interview.

I am sending a copy of this to my BLOG master.

Greetings, and success in your studies.

GEORGE BARNSBY

Dear Glen, my nephew and fellow Arsenal fanatic.

Will the excitement never end for us? With the season almost over Theo Walcott, our boy wonder, is selected for England by the default of too many of Sven-Goran’s England squad being deficient in the metatarsal department.

I wrote to Glenn asking if there was any chance of my acquiring an ‘I was There’ shirt to which I wanted to add ‘in Spirit’, but he tells me that they are selling for £300 a piece, so I guess that is the end of that particular dream.

Now Theo’s sixteen year old girl friend, Melanie Slade, joins the other footballers’ wives running the Race for Life to combat cancer.
Nor is that the end of it, for at Wolves there is Jeremie Aliadiere, Arsene Wenger’s former prodigy, who is quite capable of achieving his full potential here at Molineux and helping us return to the Premiership.
I ended by musing that when we eventually came off Cloud Nine there would be the normal duties of Kicking out Racism from football, with the particular contribution of the Three Degrees, Batson, Cunningham and Regis at West Bromwich who faced racism at its worst; Dave Bowler and Jas Bains who wrote about them in their great book Samba in the Smethwick End; and the two survivors, Brendan Batson and Cyrille Regis who continue to be active in fighting racism. I hear also that my good friends at Sheffield United have a special project in hand and there are also our women footballers who need help and encouragment to promote the game locally.
There is also the campaign to ensure that clubs are owned by their local communities and are not swallowed up as Manchester United has been by the US tycoon Glazer, or Chelsea by the Russian oligarch who stole his money from the Russian people. It is significant that the two main Clubs in Spain, Barca and Real Madrid are not for sale because they are owned by their communities and both have played a signficant part in the history of their regions.
What joy or tears await us in the European Cup final on Wednesday and in the forthcoming World Cup we cannot know, but we believe that Britain will play its part in advancing both the cause of football and multiculturalism in the coming months.
GEORGE BARNSBY
70 Years an Arsenal supporter and 50 years a Wolves fan.

I wish to pay my tribute to Thierry Henry whether he leaves Arsenal or whether, as millions  hope, he stays.

Were there a poll of the most Influential Citizens of the Civilised World Thierry would rank in the first ten.

He is a guru of fashion and style influening millions of young people, particularly Blacks.

He is an implacable opponent of Racism, including in football.

He is the only man ever appointed Ambassador of Football throughout the World by Sepp Blatter when head of FIFA and is widely accepted as continuing in that role.

He is a confidante of Diego Maradona, has worn the Che Guevara tee-shirt in Brazil, is aware of the of the traditions of Simon Boliva both in football and politics in South America and would be aware of new trends in South American politics including the role of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and others resisting the imperialism of George Bush in the USA.

Thierry is entitled to follow his beliefs as to what is most important at the peak of his career both to him and and his influence whether that be playing in England the home of football, or Europe where he was born and brought up, or the  South America of Maradona and Pele, or Africa the origin of his French Race.

Whatever he does his choice will be respected, but we naturally hope that he will remain in England and share the adventure of Arsene Wenger in developing the new  Stadium at Ashburton Grove and keeping Arsenal the most important club in the world.

GEORGE BARNSBY
70 years an Arsenal Fan, 50 years a Wolves Fan.
A lifetime anti-racist and anti-fascist activist.

Dear Jon Snow,

I see that you are advertising in the Guardian for people to contact you.
You will then presumably reply to them. So why has it taken 13 attempts for me to contact you and still I have had no reply?

The need for press and broadcasters to speak and publish not only truth but the whole truth has been illustrated by the BBC coverage of the local elections last night that were a disgrace to British journalism. No hint of the war in Iraq or the politics of Blair or other realities of political life were allowed to obtrude.

Blunkett, Reid and other Blairites who are totally dependent on the whims of Tony Blair for their future prospects under the present undemocratic constitution were allowed to prattle meaningless rubbish about Tony Blair having to listen to the people.

But Blair has no intention of listening to anyone. He is a Tory who has hijacked the Labour Party. He is a mass murderer responsible for the slaughter of Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians. He is intent on privatising our hospitals, schools, social services and all other services at present in the public domain.

He is the destroyer of our civil liberties to the point where individual protestors will be arrested for ’supporting terrorism’ and newspapers like The Guardian closed for opposing the war in Iraq.

Until someone like Jon Snow or Paxman takes a stand no newscaster or journalist is to be believed or respected. They are all voluntary sycophants of Tony Blair and unless they protest they will soon share the same fate as their US counterparts.

In the US this process has been reported this week by Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton.He tells of a Stephen Colbert who at a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday mock flattered the press by stating ‘Over the last five years you people were so good - over tax cuts, WMD and the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’k know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out…Here’s how it
works: the president makes a decision…the press secretary announces these decisions and you people of the press type them down. Make, announce, type.
Just put ‘em through a spell check and go home.’

Blumenthall goes on: The day after this brave man Colbert’s performannce the New York Times posted a front page story on the latest phase of the administration’s war on the press. Bush is weighing ‘the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espoinage laws’.

Our local election is now over and Blairites including Bilston’s renegade Pat MacFadden have now been given their traitors’s rewards of becoming members of Blair’s openly derided Cabinet. Much good will it do them trying to sell Tony’s Old Tory policies to the public

There is no other solution BUT to put the war criminal Blair put under lock and key.

GEORGE BARNSBY

It almost defies belief that in what is, at the time of writing, still a democratic country, these four Titans of the Fourth Estate, Paxman, Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark should on thirteen separate occasions defy my request to explain to me and the general public who depend totally on newscasters for truthful news, why in interviewing Blair and his New Labour satraps they have failed to challenge him on his illegal and racist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. In addition they have disregarded the common courtesy of replying to correspondents, however humble they may be.

Thirteen times, unlucky for some, and the circle must now be widened to newspaper owners, the Press Complaints Commission, journalists and printers trade unions and all bodies concerned that news should be objective and truthful.

The refusal of Paxman and company to carry out their journalistic duties is in fact cowardly and leaves fellow journalists without a lead to follow.

Take two important examples. Huw Edwards, recently did an important feature on the Life of Lloyd George. He might well be considered as a spokesman for the Welsh people. Does he have a mind of his own or does he simply read the Blair-speak which is put in front of him? Does he belong to any organisation that works for an agreed source of objective news such as Al Jazeera? Or take the black man George Alagiah. Does he believe any Blairite tosh put in front of him to read? Or has he a mind of his own and is he a member of any organisation with the purpose of working towards agreed standards of objectivity?
The public is entitled to ask these question of all public servants at a time when the days of the alleged objectivity of the BBC are long since gone. All newscasters now face the problem of whether they are pawns of government or whether they are their own men. The only weapon a newscaster has is to resign if he does not agree with what he has been given to read. And a couple of such resignations might be necessary to sound a tocsin which will reverberate throughout Britain, if not the world.

But it is to Tony Blair’s increasing megalomania we must now turn. His problems are now so immense that he cannot avoid talking about them. I once compared Blair with Oliver Cromwell, who in difficult situations communed with God and if he was convinced that he was doing the Lord’s work there was no atrocity that he would not commit. The analogy seems even more apt today. Cromwell became Lord Protector in his last years and it is clear that Blair is now intent on also becoming a dictator by accumulating the powers not only of the legislature (parliament) which passes the laws, but of the executive which carries them out (the civil service) and also the judiciary which judges on the laws. Blair sees himself as our Protector but is becoming an absolute dictator and such are his exalted views of his own infallibity he will destroy both himslf and Britain unless he is arrested NOW.

I would also mention the Euston Manifesto arguing for a new Manifesto of the Left. It states, ‘Courage takes many forms. It can be the journalist going against the grain. It can be a civil servant risking jail in order to expose malfeasance by the state.’

With these statements I agree. But it does not cover the existing situation where I or any other protester can be arrested for ‘encouraging terrorism’. The Euston Manifesto shirks the main political question of our time - Blair, holding the coat tails of Bush, and Bush himself are the two greatest terrorists in the world and until this is recognised neither our safety nor our liberties will be preserved.

Why for the first time in my life I cannot vote Labour, nor can I vote for other Parties and so must abstain from using the vote that our fore sisters and brothers fought so hard for

Having come to the decision that I would never vote for Tony Blair, the second most important war criminal and racist in the world, nor for any candidate purporting to be Labour when I would in fact be voting New Labour, I now set out my reasons for not voting for any party, but abstaining in these elections on May 4th.

With regard to Labour candidates some are Blairites only too happy not to reveal their support for Blair’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elswere with the excuse that these election are concerned only with local affairs. Such I regret to say is Jaseen Khan the candidate for my ward Tettenhall Wighwick.
So I have emailed you as the Councillor in overall charge of the Wolverhampton Labour campaign to request that the views of all Labour candidates be declared as to whether they are Blairites or whether they believe in the socialist values of those who formed the Labour Party just one hundred years ago.

Unfortunately we have the sad spectacle of Dennis Turner abandoning all the traditions of Bilston’s history and becoming Lord Bilston. Worse than this.
he has allowed ‘foreigner’ Pat McFadden, a long-term stooge of Blair to take over his seat. And party to this betrayal have been the councillors and members of the Bilston constituency party. People, of course are entitled to support Blair and his murderous wars, but they must make this clear to their voters, the majority of whom oppose the wars and demand that our troops be brought home.

With regard to the Tories, I have constantly told David Cameron that he has no chance of winning the next election unless he opposes the illegal and racist war in Iraq. Blair has stolen the clothes of the old Tories and has himself become a Tory, so unless Cameron opposes the war he is keeping Blair afloat. Cameron in fact opposes the war by agreeing with the Liberal Democrats who opposed the war from the beginning and and he is strengthened by the knowledge that the majority of the British people are opposed to the war. But Cameron is coy on the present local elections. Perhaps he still believes the fallacy that national policies have no place in local politics, but if so, he has no chance of winning the voters who will allow him to join the struggle which will inevitably topple Blair and Blairism long before the next election.

But David Cameron is both helped and hindered by the history of the quite special city of Wolverhampton which raised itself by its own efforts from being considered the racist capital of Britain in the days of Enoch Powell to one of the most important centres of anti-racism.

The most important political action initiated in Wolverhampton was Diversity 2000 a project sponsored by every important organisation in the town which organisd a united carnival and march through the city of its its black and white citizens in the millenial year. The project did not quite come off, due to a black organisation believing that Diversity was aiming to take over its Carnival, and so the chance that only comes once in a thousand years was missed. I was secretary of Diversity 2000 as the representative of Wolverhampton Race Equality Council(WREC) and wrote afterwards that my greatest pride was in having recruited two organisations, namely the police, who were prepared to march happily with us instead of being only the grim keepers of law and order, and also the Tory party which had at last repudiated the racism of Powell. I was astonished to hear from the leader of the Tory Party at that time, Jim McMillan, that this was not so and he continued in his support and admiration for Enoch Powell. These were the attitudes of a national and local Tory Party which had not yet discarded its racism as decisively as David Cameron wishes it to.

At this in between period in Tory experience, a number of Tories joined WREC and worked effectively for good race relations. I was pleased to learn that one of these, Doreen Seithboth, is still active in politics. The person who did most to convert the Tories to anti-racism was Councillor Robert Ward who did not have a racist bone in his body. His death from cancer was a grievous blow to anti-racism in Wolverhampton. Another welcome recruit to WREC at this time was Andrew Wynne, a present Tory candidate, who demonstrated how difficult it was for some Tories to eradicate racism by purchasing a collection of momentoes of Enoch Powell.

The local Tory Party has now committed an unforgivable sin in allowing John Mellor to stand as a municipal candidate. Mellor has a dubious record of leaving the police in unexplained circumstances, and being a liftime racist by the definition of being an unrepentant supporter of Enoch Powell. Mellor can only expatiate his previous activity by publicly announcing that he has renounced racism and support for Enoch Powell. Failing this, it is to be hoped that the new Cameronite Tory Party will expel Mellor without delay.

For all the above reasons it is clear that I would never vote Tory while the present racism exists.

This leaves various other parties I might vote for. The Lib.Dems have clean hands with regard to the war in Iraq and Ming appeals to me as a fellow ex-serviceman and world class sportsman. But the local party has never shown much originality or energy, are more Tory than socialist and now they have expelled their local leader. I cannot vote for them.

This leaves the fascist BNP standing in Wolverhampton which we are sure all parties will wish to oppose and the UK Independence Party which is a little too insular for my taste.

Despite abstaining from voting this year I am confident that Blair and Blairism will be be removed long before the next general election by the actions of the general public and many of those politicians I have criticised in this email.

Dear Yaseen Khan

I cannot find an e-mail adress for you or your agent, so I am addressing this to Rob Marris our MP and asking him to pass it on to you.

I was most pleased to learn that a muslim was standing in this ward and I would gladly have voted for you if circumstances had been normal, but I fear they are not.

The first question I asked you was your attitude to fellow Muslim Moazzam Begg who spent three years in the hell hole of Guantamo in solitary confinement in a cell no larger than the average toilet here, denied all natural light, but provided with artificial light for twenty four hours a day preventing sleep, physically tortured, interviewed by British consular officials who not only gave no assistance, but approved of the treatment Begg received. He was finally released because there was no shred of evidence that he was a terrorist. I was most happy to hear you say that you sympathised with Begg, but later remarks suggested that you would not openly support him and this could only be because of the connection of Tony Blair with George Bush.

My second question was whether you were a supporter of Tony Blair whose illegal and racist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere make him a war criminal who should be arrested at once. You admitted that you were a Blairite. This, of course, you are quite entitled to be, but this should be made this clear to your voters otherwise you risk standing under false pretences.

My third question concerned your election address which I found misleading in suggesting that I should vote Labour whereas what I would really be getting is Blair’s New Labour. The only possible circumstances under which I would vote Labour is that it might prevent the fascist British National Party getting in. This is a possibility in Wolverhampton only in Wednesfield North. Elsewhere in the city I would be voting for Tony Blair.

Then there is the question of the election being a local one where national politics have no place. This of course, is a cop out allowing candidates not to reveal their true opinions on vital matters. So its alright for the supporters of war criminals and mass murderers to stand in local elections?
That is the logic of the so called non-political attitude. Our legal system has an oath which not only requires us to tell the truth, but also the whole truth and I shall be emailing the Councillor in overall charge of the Labour campaign in Wolverhampton, Andrew Johnson,to request two things of all Labour candidates standing in the city. First that they reveal their attitudes to the war criminal, Tony Blair. Secondly that they reveal whether they support a Labour programme or a New Labour policy. I suggest that their answers be sent to the Express and Star by Wednesday evening. This will not only inform the electorate of their true intentions but possibly avoid charges of campaigning under a false prospectus which might be made under our electoral rules after the election.

But it is the paeons of praise for everthing that the New Labour governments have ‘achieved’ which will upset and enrage the majority of people locally and nationally.

Take our hospitals. We have the utter folly of the closure of our famed Eye Infirmary, despite the 50,000 protest petiton. Here I have had two completely successful cataract operations thanks to the devoted staff. The main reason for not taking the eye infirmary to New Cross hospital is a question life and death. If any eye patient is sent to New Cross hospital with its manifold problems and develops an eye infection in a hospital where MRSA is all too prevalent, it could be fatal. In such a case the leader of the Royal Hospital New Cross Trust would be guilty of homicide. Who is this chair of the Trust? He is David Loughton, a person who was allowed to resign before he was sacked at Coventry and neighbouring hospital trusts.
He was then appointed, by whom we know not, to the chair of New Cross. The Trust has been determined for some years to take the Eye Informary to New Cross, but the very large debts accruing to New Cross Hospital under his leadership in recent months seem to have made him even more determined to sell our Eye Infirmary for about £2m which is miniscule in terms to total debts.

How did New Cross come to this pass? If they had been allowed to buy the land almost opposite the hospital at Bentley Bridge most of their present problems would not have arisen. But, I am told on very reliable evidence, that at every attempt to purchase the land the ante was upped and eventually it was sold to land speculators who turned it into the more profitable collection of cinemas, restaurants etc which now occupy the site. So we have had the absurb projects such as tearing down the whole site at New Cross and rebuilding it bit by bit. This would have had the same effect as the completed project to build a first rate heart centre on the site - advances in medical technology would have rendered it obsolete before it was completed. Or there were even wilder plans to build a vast multi-storey complex away from New Cross on land not available or likely to be made available. In the meantime this management is reduced to charging not only patients who cannot find anywhere to park, but their own staff £5 a day to try to make ends meet.

Mr.Yaseen Khan and his Blairite friends see nothing wrong with our schools.
But let me remind him that we now have no Tettenhall Comprehensive school to which those of us who demand a secular education for our children can send them. Regis has been taken over by the Church of England. Also our secondary schools have been virtually obliged to take fancy names and call themselves academies allowing them to fiddle their intake procedures to the detriment of poorer peole and ethnic minorities. These will become privatised academies where religious charlatans of every description pour their money and intend to force creationism on to their syllabuses. We are currently investigating how much suc dubious outfits as Jehovah’s witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Scientologists are currently putting money into Wolverhampton schools. We note in passing that such investigations were the speciality of Wolverhampton Race Equality Council until it was closed down by Trevor Phillips of the CRE. We will also note that Bilston Community Colllege(BCC)became the first multicultural college in Britain until it was closed down by David Blunkett and Tony Blair. Fortunately BCC has refused to lie down and will almost certainly be reinstated when the information forced by the Friends of Bilston College under the Freedom of Information Act show that the College was illegally closed. This will mean, of course, that Wolverhampton City College was improperly opened. Such are some of the problems arising from Tony Blair’s adoption of Thatcherite Tory policies of abandoning socialism for capitalism.

Finally there is the sleaze and scandals of recent days which are liable to prove fatal for Blairism and New Labour. We have had the sexual antics of the deputy prime minister on government property! The pitiful attempts of Patricia Hewitt to flog the idea of a privatised health service to a staid and usually conservative Royal College of Nursing. The bluster of Charles Clarke and his craven apologies for his unbelievable mismanagement of the Home Office. For this he retains Blair’s support when the organisation should be the department initiating the arrest of the war criminal Blair.

For all of the above reasons I find myself for the first time in my life not able to vote for the Labour Party. I shall abstain because of the follies of other parties standing in Wolverhampton. These I shall outline in a subsequent email. I suggest that Mr.Yaseen Khan ditches his Blairism and joins us in the struggle to rebuild the Labour Party as a Socialist and working class party.

It is, of course, possible at this stage that the American people will oust the greatest war criminal in the world, George Bush, and beat us to it. This would greatly strengthen us in our struggle to oust the second most important war criminal, Tony Blair.