FOOTBALL
The summer has been a time of much sentiment for me, largely concerned with sport and particularly football. The excitement began when Arsenal became the only English team to remain in the European Cup and might well have won it had not their German goalkeeper suffered a rush of blood to the head and been sent off.
Then there was the question of whether Thierry Henry would stay at Arsenal or not. This was followed by the Cup itself where England was eliminated in the quarterfinals. On all these issues the BLOG was unique in having a political outlook showing that if our football clubs fell in to the hands of USA entrepreneurs it was tantamount to being controlled by Bush and vice-versa that footballers such as Thierry Henry outstanding in their hatred of racism would line themselves up behind Maradonna and the footballers of the New World of Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentine etc.
Nor was this all. To our list of Arsenal fans was added Amy Lawrence, a football correspondent of the Observer who lives a stone’s throw from the new Emirates Stadium and could watch its completion day by day. Another celebrated Arsenal supporter was Brian Glanville of the Sunday Times.
Mixed up with this was the case of Theo Walcott the seventeen year old ‘wonder boy’ who was picked for England by Sven Goran Erickson without his ever playing a Premiership game, and the rash of metatarsal injuries to Ashley Cole, Michael Owen, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney which are caused by their toes not being protected, because makers of footwear such as Nike and Adidas are more interested in their profits than protecting footballers’ toes with modern lightweight materials. We wrote to Nike complaining of this, but we have so far received no reply and we don’t expect to until we begin pressing them.
Pre-season there has also been the opening of the Emirates Stadium at one end of the spectrum of bliss and problems of Wolves and other midland clubs as they face the new season with new managers and the loss of Premiership finance and with their sugar daddies, deciding they will no longer bear the burden at the other end. Although Sir Jack Hayward of Wolverhampton that fiercest of patriots still disputes whether he has seen any money for which he could cut and run or whether he would cut and run if the money came from an unsuitable donor. Good for him.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THOSE FUNDED WITH PUBLIC MONEY REPRESENTING ETHNIC MINORITY INTERESTS
Beginning with Trevor Phillip’s (chair of the Commission for Racial Equality) statement that the question of the war in Iraq was ‘not within his remit’ we have challenged the suitability of those responsible for the New Race Equality Unit in Wolverhampton to represent ethnic minority people. Having raised this question that many of those involved in race relations are not part of the solution but part of the problem we have invited public discussion on this problem. Part of the answer will come if we have persuaded two of the most important publications on Race, namely the CRE publication PROSPECT and the Runnymede Trust Quarterly bulletin to publish our criticism. We have this week received a reply from Trevor Phillips on our criticism of him and it will take a week or so before we can before we can formulate a considered reply. But what can be said is that his reply is crucial in the modem era of peoples’ power and BLOGs in recognising that public bodies have a duty to reply to anyone who addresses correspondence to them and that they can no longer hide behind the cowardly and improper procedure of failing to reply to correspondence. Department for Education and Skills, the Learning and Skills Council, the Home Office and all other lesser breeds of civil servants and public employees please note.
DECLARING WHETHER YOU ARE FOR OR AGAINST THE WAR IN IRAQ
During the local elections in May we had the case of a Muslim Labour candidate in Tettenhall for whom I would have willingly voted normally who supported Blair and his war in Iraq, but had no intention of revealing this fact because he claimed it was not relevant to a local election. This was not how I saw the matter, especially as there were local Conservatives who had opposed the war in Iraq and who were prepared to support David Cameron in his attempts to modernise the party and whose one chance of winning the next general election was for Cameron to repudiate the war in Iraq. This being the case I wrote to Andrew Johnson the secretary of the Wolverhampton Labour Party suggesting that every Labour candidate in the election should declare his attitude to the Iraq war. This was particularly the case since the one Councillor who did oppose the war stated that he was the only Labour councillor who did oppose the war. Andrew Johnson, who once was a progressive councillor who bought the Morning Star from me every Saturday, has seemingly changed his views for I have not received a reply from him and he has become one of the Silent Ones.The only way to test councillors’ views on Iraq would be for a motion to be put to the council on this subject and for a vote to be taken. Is that possible under the present constitution of the Council?
HELPING THE ELDERLY TO LIVE THROUGH THE HEATWAVE
I am surviving the hot weather not too badly. I always tell people that physically I am a wreck and cannot move more than a few yards without the assistance of family or ftiends; but fortunately my mind remains razor sharp and I spend much time scourging the unworthy and the money grabbers.
Not so my brother Sidney. He has suffered a heart attack and was admitted to Watford General Hospital where he tells me everything is in decay and the hospital is due to be closed down. So much for the good people of Watford, and no doubt you and I can make comparisons nearer at home.
But I’m going to tell you more about my brother, sixteen months my junior. We both served in the Royal Amy Medical Corps throughout the Second World War. He at Dunkirk and later the Middle East and Europe. Me four years in Burma and India. We both left the army in 1946 with an approximately equal gratuity of £100. While waiting for demobilisation he took an Accountancy Tuition Course, spent his £100 on a second hand car and found employment at the Denham film studios, where remaining single, he hobnobbed with every glamorous film star, and eventually became a Senior Film Accountant responsible for every penny spent on a film. Sidney’s twilight years will be cushioned by the more than affluent state of his finances.
I, on the other hand, spent my £100 gratuity on ’seeing whether I had any brains’, financed myself through University Entrance exams , went to the university of my choice, ( the London School of Economics) and eventually became a teacher. From this profession I retired prematurely at the age of 63 from a heart attack with a modest pension and lump sum which finances my Free Communist Bookshop. Was I the mug? I think not. Everyone to his taste.
RETURN TO THE STATE OF THE HEALTH SERVICE IN WOLVERHAMPTON
Despite the devoted staff at our main New Cross hospital frequently acknowledged by grateful patients with letters to our local press, the hospital is not a happy place. Major problems have been financial deficits, the low ratings given it at inspections and the deadly infection MRSA which the latest report shows is still one of the worst hospitals in Britain in this respect.
Much of the blame for this must be laid at the door of David Loughton the chief executive of the Trust. Loughton resigned from the Coventry and Walsgrave Hospital Trusts of which he was formerly the head, before he was sacked. Who appointed this inefficient and reckless man to be in charge of the Wolverhampton Trust? A running sore has been that the Trust also controls the famed Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary which for 125 years has served the people of Wolverhampton and the West Midlands. Loughton is determined that the Eye Hospital should be closed and merged with New Cross. The problem is that if eye patients catch an infection in New Cross it is liable to prove fatal. Yet this is the course that Loughton is determined to pursue. We tell Loughton plainly that if any eye patient dies from infection at New Cross this will be his personal responsibility and he will be guilty of homicide, or to put the matter more plainly - MURDER
From Watford to Wolverhampton and beyond goes the call SAVE OUR HEALTH SERVICE and apart from incompetent Executives every finger points to Tony Blair. He should resign at once.
THE GREATEST SCOUNDREL WHO EVER LIVED IN WOLVERHAMPTON
This was Jonathan Wild. He took his great talents of cardsharping, pickpocketing, highway robbery, bribery etc. to London. Wild’s great achievement was to monopolise crime and pose as a ‘thief taker’ by instructing his thieves what to steal, receiving the stolen goods from them and returning them to their owners for a fee. Those who would not play his game were given up to the authorities and usually hanged. Wild was the greatest thief of all time, but was eventually hanged. He remained the greatest criminal of all time, until Tony Blair and his Court came onto the scene.
Read the full story of Wild in our Autumn BLOG.
WORKING CLASS HISTORY
Tristram Hunt has initiated a campaign in the Guardian to have the key events of working class history celebrated. I have sent him my four free booklets of West Midlands history - RADICAL WOLVERHAMPTON, RADICAL WALSALL, RADICAL BILSTON and RADICAL BIRMINGHAM and outlined to him the unequalled sources of local and working class history that we have in the West Midlands such as Carl Chinn’s weekly page in the Express & Star, the Black Country Bugle, the Blackcountryman and the growth of interest in history at this point of time.
We also have the history of Black immigration into the West Midlands through Black History Month, and the Windrush project which tells of the earliest Affican-Carribean settlers into the Black Country. This is ongoing stuff. Any teacher or historian who would like a copy of Radical Wolverhampton or other towns can apply to me for a free copy while stocks last.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
This Report is necessarily limited to four pages so that it can be sent with the Summer BLOG and also be sent for a second class stamp.
Politically there is continued slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now open warfare in Palestine and Lebanon. The self-delusion of Bush, Blair and the Israelis that they can win their illegal wars bring to mind that well worn cliché, ‘Those that the Gods wish to destroy they first send mad!’
Some historical items follow. One is that Laurie Green has sent me his autobiography, ‘The Red above the Green.’ Laurie was in Burma when he was seventeen volunteering to go there on grounds that his grandfather had been in the Indian Army. His mother wrote to her friend the Commander of the 14th Army General Slim asking him to look after Laurie; and his vindictive grammar school head also wrote to Slim telling not to promote Laurie, because he was a ‘dangerous Communist’. Lots of fun with serious intent. Lots of jazz too.
Secondly a letter from John Harper throwing fresh light on the so-called Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot. Agents-Provocateur in the working class movement. Very topical.
FIDEL CASTRO
We would like to add our best wishes to Fidel for a speedy recovery, a happy 80th birthday and membership of the 120 Club in Cuba which admits not only those who have reached that age but also those who are determined to get there.
Cuba is the country very near the USA which Bush would most like to destroy, but he has had his fingers burned too frequently. Too many body bags. Remember the disastrous Bay of Pigs attempted invasion. So with the illness of Castro the US has a two-fold strategy. A July 2006 Report to the President calls for a ‘Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba’ with 80 million dollars this year rising by 20 millions each subsequent year to ensure that there is not succession after Fidel, but regime change. If intervention in Iraq has been disastrous, intervention in Cuba would be worse for it would be resisted not only by the Cuban people but by the whole of the Caribbean region. Bush must be told that the failed blockade of Cuba which has caused so much suffering must be ended and Cubans left to govern themselves. It is good to know that such a policy is supported not only by the UN but by 200 British Labour MPs.
Next BLOG Autumn, out in September.
GEORGE BARNSBY