The Barnsby Blog

THE INDUSTRY AND CUNNING OF NEW LABOUR.
Everything they touch they pollute. Discredit one of them and another
gullible nonentity is recruited. Its is interesting to see how Socialist and
Non-Socialist veterans in the field of Anti-Bush and Blair matters deal with
this. I take two examples from today’s Guardian. Simon Jenkins has an
article of labyrinthine complexity arguing that when institutions build a
vast edifice a Parkinson’s law means that they are on their way to. He
begins with Genghis Khan where he loses me, goes on to Lateen’s New Delhi
palace for the ailing British raj. The government has already relocated such
glories to its memory as a war museum, the Standards Board, the Training
Agency for Schools and several others. An even greater monument was to have
been the Jowell Memorial Supercasino. Adonis’s position was a fall-back one
when the Lords rejected these proposals and their punishment was to be
banishment to Manchester but Manchester does not need such accolades. While
London grew fat on the fruits of the slave trade, Manchester was Florence to
London’s Rome with its streets lined with commercial palaces built by their
slave trading Mandarins.
The Home Office had to be put out of its misery yesterday after three
years of chaos caused by moving out of Queen Anne’s Gate into sparkling new
premises in Marsham Street. Britain’s law lords have been a rare and valiant
check on the ever growing power of the executive working from a scruffy
corridor in the Palace of Westminster. But disaster struck this week when a
sycophantic judge gave them permission to break the law ‘in the national
interest’ so that they could destroy the old Middlesex Guildhall opposite
Parliament to build an inflated palace to their self-aggrandisement. Jenkins
closes by reminding us that in the meantime a humble Georgian terrace house
not changed since Walpole’s day has gained most power during Blair’s
tenancy. It is No.10.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Steele has been visiting the United States and
finding symbolism akin to that found by Simon Jenkins. Walking from the
Senate to the House of Representatives he notes in the great domed rotunda
where presidents lie in state before burial he concentrated on a plaque
explaining a ceiling fresco which depicted
‘The Apotheosis of George Washington’ the first US president rising to the
heavens and becoming a god. The image is pagan rather than Christian, but
even more extraordinary is the myth of Islamic martyrs going happily to
their deaths in the expectation that 72 virgins would accompany them yet
here we have the elderly Washington floating up in the midst of thirteen
virgins, one for each of the original American states.
Steele describes the collapse of support for the war in Iraq even in
the remotest, previously Bush areas. He shows the US administration much
further advanced than our Parliament. It is summed up in the new slogan
PROTECT OUR TROOPS - BRING THEM HOME.

IRAN.
Iran is one of the most ancient civilisations in the world. It
obviously thinks itself better protected with nuclear weapons than without.
That British naval forces should be operating in the Persian Gulf, even
though with EU support is an affront. Iran needs to protect itself from US
nuclear intervention, but historically it is British imperialism which has
dominated Iran. In other words the little Satan compared with the Great
Satan of the United States.The Anglo-Persian oil company has dominated Iran
since oil was discovered there in 1901 and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was
formed. To protect its route to India Britain invaded Iran in 1941. Although
it later withdrew imperialist forces continued to be stationed in the
Persian Gulf. This comfortable state of affairs was rudely interrupted by
the election in 1951 of Mohammad Mossadegh who promptly nationalised the oil
industry. Mossadegh was ousted in a joint CIA-MI6 putsch , but national
feeling continued against imperial interference. This was further fed by
London support for Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. It is
clear that Iran will resist imperialist influence and the present naval and
RAF hostages are the victims of continued imperialist aggression. Like the
US understanding that only the ending of the war in Iraq will protect US
forces, so we must learn that only the ending of all imperialist aggression
throughout the world will protect Britain from nuclear holocaust and MAD
(Mutually Assured Destruction).

LOCAL MATTERS.
The search for the new Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton (REPW)
still continues. A mobile phone number for Annan Chaudrey the chief
executive of the new organisation has been replaced by another mobile number
but of Mr.Chaudrey there is still no trace. Are we financing a REPW or a
secret society? Much explanation is urgently required. I am assured,
however that premises have been taken at Coniston House and REPW will start
functioning next week.
An email has been sent to the leader of the Labour City Council
requesting the identity of the persons responsible for the 4-page
advertisement in the Express & Star of March 8 lauding the performance of
our Secondary schools with fancy titles such as Performing Arts, Technology,
Business and Enterprise etc. when these schools with special selection
procedures increase inequality of other schools. This, together with schemes
for vast Academies sponsored by religious and business interests with no
check on amounts invested or ulterior motives for changing secular to
religious schools. Much of this is being challenged by education trade
unions such as the National Union of Teachers which, this week at their
annual Easter Conference will present stiff challenges to religious
influences and lack ethnic minority safeguards in schools.
For a fuller analysis see my BLOG 61 18 March on the Serious State of
Education in Wolverhampton.

ME AND THE GDR.
I have had a prompt reply to my email to Bruni de la Motte
congratulating her on her piece in the Guardian pointing out how East German
was de-nazified after the war whereas in West German old Nazis and Neo-Nazis
were not prosecuted, but virtually ran the state in West Germany. She thanks
me for my BLOG address and hopes that we will keep in touch. Incidentally,
one of the outcomes of turning up my correspondence on the GDR is that I
have found a selection of letters that I wrote to German teachers of English
from Potsdam over many years on conditions in the GDR and in Britain and
family affairs etc. If ever my Collected Letters were published these would
be included, but for the moment I shall re-read them and see what I was
thinking all those years ago.

LONG LIVE THE GDR.
How pleased I was to read Bruni de la Motte’s article in today’s
Guardian setting the record straight concerning the German Democratic
Republic’s record on denazification and my blood still boils when the record
of West Germany is compared. In the west thousands of leading Nazi army
officers and judges who had sent Jews and leftists to their deaths, doctors
who experimented on concentration camp victims, politicians and others were
left unscathed and continued in their professions. On retirement they
received generous pensions whereas those who had opposed the Nazis or had
been imprisoned in concentration camps received no pensions for these
periods.
Compare this with the record of East Germany which I saw with my own
eyes. Bruni continues, I was born and grew up in the GDR. Our schoolbooks
delt extensively with the Nazi period. During the course of their schooling
all pupils were taken at least once to concentration camps where a former
inmate would describe in graphic detail what took place. All concentration
camps in the former GDR were maintained as commemorative places so that no
one should forget. The government contained a good proportion of these,
including Jews, who had been forced to flee Hitler Germany or had been
interned. The allies post-war Potsdam Agreement laid down the vital need to
prosecute war criminals and de-Nazify the country. In the east, thousands of
new teachers had to be found overight as those tainted by Nazi ideology were
not suitable to teach a new post-war generation and this resulted in schools
having under-trained and inadequate teaching staff for some years; all
lawyers were replaced too.
Yes, I saw all this with my own eyes as I attended Summer Courses in
Potsdam for German teachers of English first in 1969 and saw how GDR
educationalists were playing their part in building Socialism in the GDR and
the fight against neo-Nazism in the West. Here in the 1970s and 80s the GDR,
together with Hungary were foremost in building a socialist society which
differed utterly from Britain. Here in the days of Sputniks and Cosmonauts
on could see a socialist society emerging with free education, free social
services, housing that cost no more than 5% of income and a society in so
many ways superior to that of Thatcher Britain with mass its unemployment
and labour laws limiting freedom. With some of the teachers I taught in 1969
and subsequently I have retained lasting contacts and when the Wall was
demolished and socialism disappeared I had no illusions having visited the
Wall from the other side and understood it as a Wall of Freedom against
western imperialism and German neo-nazism .
Those who rejoiced at the fall of the Wall and socialism have proved
mistaken and the spirit of Marx as the spectre haunting capitalism survives
today in the land of his birth.

TASKS FOR ANTI-FASCISTS AND ANTI-RACISTS.
We are again indebted to Nick Kelleher and the W’ton etc Trades Union
Council for a long list of events. First is the Sandwell anti-BNP Day of
Action on Sunday 1 April from 10.30 am to 5pm. This is at the West Bromwich
African Caribbean Resource Centre, Thomas Street, West Bromwich. 200
volunteers are requested to distribute 50,000 leaflets. Lunch is provided
and there will be a lively performance from Billy Bragg.
Next come the details of the Wolverhampton May Day celebration (on May
Day itself, not the following week-end) at the Pegasus Pub, Craddock St.
Star attraction Attila the Stockbroker. Star speakers, refreshments, Indian
food and bouncey castle, no doubt. Also stalls including yours truly’s
bookstall manned by my two sons and Ivor Pearce famed folk singer and
guitarist. Alwasy the event of the year. Be there.
Then there is a Justice for Palestine, Peace in the Middle East meeting
on Friday 23 March 07.
Next Social Work with Refugees and Asylum Seeker, Practice, Policy and
the Politics of Racism, Saturday 19 May 10-4pm. A regional school.
On Saturday 28 April TUC Workers’ Memorial Day, Union Workplaces are
Safer Workplaces. Sign the ePetition to make Workers’ Memorial Day a nationa
day of Mourning.
Midlands TUC AGM 24 February repeort back meeting.
Later in the year: Chainmakers’ Festival. Saturday Sat.15 September
Tony Benn to speak.
Workshops for Women Trade Unionists.
Thes are all preliminary announcements and must be confirmed on the Wolves
TUC website. www.wolvestuc.org.uk

ENOCH POWELL AND HIS RIVERS OF BLOOD SPEECH - THE LATEST.
It will be remembered that Peter Rhodes of the Express and Star had
discovered a whole new angle to the Powell speech by a lady named Colleen
Moore contacting him and saying that she and other new arrivals at Brighton
Place had written to Enoch Powell telling him of their fears about lower
class West Indians who were following them to Wolverhampton who ‘might bring
them down.
Lance Dunkley a West Indian bus driver is a key player in this
controversy. He lived in the same street as Enoch Powell, adjacent to
Brighton Place and knew everyone who lived in Brighton Place. Lance suggests
that Coleen Moore is mistaken in the details she gives of the residents in
Brighton Place and that none of the residents of the street would contact
Enoch Powell on any matter, let alone write complaining about incoming West
Indians. So, according to Lance, Peter Rhodes scoop is not a scoop. I asked
him if he would contact Lance, but he stated, quite reasonably, that it is
not a reporter’s job to destroy his own story, so he will not be contacting
Lance. Although it ought to be said that it is the task of a reporter to
verify anything he writes.
So where do we go from here? The first job is to see who actually lived
in Brighton Place in the 1950s and 1960s. This could be confirmed from the
1951 and 1961 national Censuses but these are subject to the 100 year rule
and that they are not, therefore, available to the public. But electoral
rolls are available and we shall be asking somebody to go the local Archives
library to see who was on the roll in the 1950s and 1960s.

THE NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS CONFERENCE AT EASTER.
There is a strong resolution at the NUT Conference next week
criticising faith schools as preventing equality of treatment for all
children. This is very much to be welcomed, but should not be at the expense
of action on racism in schools. Our local NUT secretary, Dave Cole, has
only today received his agenda for the conference which he will be
attending, so I must make enquiries tomorrow at NUT headquarters to get a
copy of the full agenda. Wolverhampton city council is by and large, a
progressive one, but it is clear that more and more educational expenditure
is being pushed on to the local authority rather than the government and
this is bringing cuts in schools’ expenditure which is resulting in
redundancies and dismissal of teachers analogous to sacking of nurses in the
health service. The local NUT finds itself with these cases of redundancy,
which it is, of course, resisting and it has had two or three such
discussions this week. The problem in Wolverhampton is that so many of its
primary schools are faith schools and the problem of the church ‘owning’ the
schools but public funds financing them has never been seriously tackled
before.

THE POSSIBILITY OF ARSENAL BEING TAKEN OVER BYAMERICANS.
We make no apology for returning to the question of Arsenal because it
ties up with the question of the patriotism of Merchant Bankers who have
controlled Arsenal since the 1930s and the patriotism of Sir Jack Hayward
controlling Wolves.
The details are much as we outlined them in our BLOG 79 of Monday this
week. Less than a fortnight after the biggest single stake holder, Danny
Fitzsman, disposed of £4 million worth of shares, a transfer of equity worth
more than £1m took place between the director, Ken Friar and the
non-executive chairman, Peter Hill-Wood with no monetary consideration in
return. Hill-Wood has a dynastic association with Arsenal through his
forbears Sir Samuel and Denis, but sold out to the vice-chair David Dein.
Even after these acquisitions Hill-Wood holds only 0.8% of Arsenal a stake
worth £3.33m. Friar’s holdings diminish to 0.07% or £313,725. These details
are taken from today’s Guardian and seem to indicate a considerable dilution
of the patriotic Merchant Banker tradition. Where does this leave Arsene
Wenger who believes in local control of clubs, but admits there is a real
danger of a takeover of the club?

200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
David Cameron delivered a splendid address to the Wilberforce
(Institute?) . He said that this is the year to acknowledge the pain and
devastation slavery had caused and the legacy it still causes to Africans
and people of African origin throughout the world. In the history of human
kind the slave trade stands as one of the greatest crimes ever committed by
man against his brother. Cameron goes on to say that he acknowledges the
pain and the legacy of slavery today in the words of Wilberforce himself in
his first speech in the House of Commons in 1789 (where a vote was passed
condemning slavery but later reversed in the House of Lords). ‘I mean not to
accuse anyone, but to take the shame upon myself in common with the whole
parliament of Great Britain for having allowed this horrid trade to have
been carried on under their authority. Cameron continues that slavery today
must be acknowledged, reparations should be made to Africa, and this should
be the great project of this century.
Whether this amounts to a personal apology for slavery and the
commitment of his Tory party to apologise is not too clear. But the
sentiments are splendid.
So why is it that Cameron supports the modern, imperialist, racist,
unjust, illegal wars of Bush and Blair in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and
elsewhere.
We await a reply from Cameron, but I don’t suppose we will get one
although he used to reply to me in the days when he was opposed to the war
and contemplated a coalition with the Lib-Dems as the most likely outcome of
the next election with Cameron as prime minister ending the war, bringing
the troops home and being lauded as one of the greatest Tory prime ministers
in the same bracket as Disraeli and Churchill. Now, if he ever becomes prime
minister he will have to face the prospect of a humiliating about-turn or of
being slung out of Iraq by an Islamic coalition determined to end Bush and
Blair’s imperialism.

CLONED ROVERS ROLL OUT OF CHINESE FACTORY.
If ever there was a case of trade union militancy justified it was the
case of ‘Red Robbo’ and the British Leyland combined joint shop stewards
attempts to save Rover in the 1970s. This is not the place to recount the
story of the South African Michael Edwardes specially imported to Longbridge
to sack Derek Robinson and his fellow trade unionists which destroyed the
car industry and with it Britain’s industrial supremacy. Today Rover cars,
built with the machinery imported from Rover are turned out in China instead
of Longbridge. This is the story of the great betrayal by Harold Wilson who
removed his Industry Minister, Tony Benn, and began the great betrayal which
closed MG Rover. The renewal of Britain’s industrial base will have to
await the removal of New Labour and Tony Blair, but the know-how of
industrial workers remains intact at present and the present amalgamated
unions of the T&GWU, AMICUS, GMB, PCS and others are ready to lead the
struggle for renewal of our industrial power.

Already Derek Robinson is a living legend, hale and hearty able renew
the battle at meetings and conferences. The famous film ‘Red Robbo’ was
repeated the other night for the second or third time and no doubt it will
be shown in years to come giving workers in the future an idea, even though
a jaundiced one, of how British workers fought to retain our economic base..
On a night that Ricky Tomlinson was defending himself on TV against the
government led enquires which branded him as a Communist when he had never
been a member of the party in his life, but for which he was imprisoned
together with Pete Carter and others of the Pentonville Five in 1972,
workers can say that their efforts have not been in vain.

JALDI, JALDI
I have today reminded Adnam Chaudry the new chief of the new race
equality unit in Wolverhampton Race Equality Partnership W’ton (REPW) that I
am still unaware of the premises they occupy and the activities they are
undertaking in this period when commemoration of the ending of the Slave
Trade are underway. I have asked him to hurry up and let me know of their
activities.

COMMUNIST HISTORY
Graham Stevenson official of the Transport & General Workers’ Union and
historian of the Communist Party of Britain sent me a notice of the 5th
email Bulletin of the History Group of the CPB. It had no attachment,
however. I notified him of this and he sent me a another notice with the
attachment. An item that interested me was that a researcher at New College,
Oxford was dealing with events in East Berlin in June 1953 and wanted to
contact Communists who had been there. My wife and I had been to the World
Youth Festival in Berlin in 1951 and had been victims of the notorious
incident of Americans with fixed bayonets attempting to prevent us reaching
Berlin which almost succeeded and we reached Berlin just a few days before
the ending of the Festival. I’ve contacted the researcher and also Graham
Stevenson whose series of the biographies of Communists, some complete and
others needing additions now number several hundreds. This is a unique
Communist archive.

ENOCH POWELL AND HIS ‘RIVERS OF BLOOD’ SPEECH - THE LATEST SENSATION
Peter Rhodes of the Express & Star has unveiled what will be a
considerable coup if it can be proved. He names Coleen Moore who lived at 7
Brighton Place Wolverhampton and now lives in Wales who might have been the
lady who wrote to Powell together with newly arrived West Indian families
telling Powell of their fears that lower class West Indians who were
following them into the Black Country ‘might bring them down.’ Coleen Moore
continues, ‘The families from Jamaica were lovely people. We got on very
well. We were Irish and newcomers just like them. They were educated people
with qualifications and their background was working on the land. We had a
lot in common and it was always open house in our place. They would come and
have tea and talk. They were very worried about the quality of people who
were beginning to arrive from the West Indies.’ A BBC investigation last
month suggested that Trudy Cotterill (a name it seems that she preferred to
her real name of Druscilla) may have written the letter to Powell. But even
close friends admitted that Mrs.Cotterill, a war widow who lived in Brighton
Place was not the most reliable of sources because she suffered a mental
illness after the death of her soldier husband in 1941 and was a heavy
drinker.
Geoff Bangham a former Tory councillor and close friend of Enoch
Powell said today. ‘All this comes as a bit of a shock but it is quite
possible that this is what happened.’
Well, yes maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. The first thing I am doing
is to submit a copy of Rhodes’ article to Lance Dunkley who knew all about
Brighton Place and was driver of the bus on which Eunice Parry (another
occupant of Brighton Place) was the conductress. Lance is the only
political anti-Enoch Powell activist who organised West Indian groups and
organisations at the time in this long running saga. I will also be
interested in what Eunice Parry has to say, as well.

200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ENDING OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
A quite important meeting took place on Sunday organised by groups at
Wolverhampton University commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the act to
abolish the slave trade. We have already discussed this matter, approving of
Ken Livingstone’s decision to apologise on behalf of the people of London,
criticising Tony Blair’s refusal to apologise, and suggesting that here in
the West Midlands our towns and cities ought to organise meeting to
apologise, suggesting in particular that Wolverhampton should organise a
committee to apologise and also Birmingham with its famous Connecting
Histories project which operates from the Central Library in Birmingham
already in place.
The meeting in Wolverhampton was such an occasion. Lance Dunkley
identified a number of young West Indians who would go further than just
seek an apology. But his ideas on the subject are more revolutionary than
that. Lance believes that apologies can only be between groups which are
equal and there is no equality between slave owners and their chained and
shackled victims. What Lance advocates is a government Office of Retribution
which will redistribute funds into the West Indies and Africa on a scale
comparable to the discrimination suffered.

ARSENAL COULD BE TAKEN OVER BY YANKS.
I read that an Arsenal shareholder had divested himself of the number
of shares he possessed which gave him a say in the future of the club and
leaves it open to a take over by US investors. Unfortunately I have lost my
copy of the item concerned and will have to ask sports writers at the
Guardian such as Richard Williams if they can identify it. We have discussed
the ramifications of this before. Manchester United, Liverpool, and Aston
Villa already in US hands. The necessity that our teams should be locally
owned as they are in Spain and elsewhere, the efforts of patriots such as
Sir Jack Hayward of Wolves and Merchant Bankers who have owned Arsenal ever
since the 1930s
but who have ensured up till now that the club remain in British hands. The
totally new situation of today when the possibility of clubs not being
profitable; that control passes to individual brokers who have tried to
avoid risk by insuring themselves, but as interest rates rise it becomes no
longer possible to ensure and the risk must be faced. At this point share
prices collapse and a slump occurs bringing mass unemployment and poverty.
This might well be the case in the USA today if shares continue to fall.
Even if share prices again rise, we have looked into the abyss and the
sooner we regain our patriotism and belief in Britain, the better.

IRISH BOOKS.
A parcel of books arrived today from the Northampton Connolly
Association. Now there was a patriot, James Connolly. I have been introduced
to writers I have not hitherto known of, particularly Aly Renwick, although
his record as a Scottish ex-soldier who spent 8 years in the British Army
before buying himself out in 1968, moving to London and participating in the
campaign against the Vietnam war meant that I should have heard of him..
When the North of Ireland erupted in 1969 and British troops sent on to the
streets he joined the Civil Rights movement and has been active in Irish
politics ever since. I shall be happy to have Peter Mulligan secretary of
Northampton Connolly Assn. and Aly Renwick to enlighten me on Irish politics
to supplement the efforts of my long term adviser Andrew Boyd, particularly
at a time when it appears that the imperialist lion, Ian Paisley, will be
obliged join Republicans in creating a united Ireland.

BEWARE - CUTS ARE AFOOT.
Beds will be axed at Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital and a staff
recruitment freeze introduced to save money.This to limit debts to
£37million by next March.
Beware, the Wolverhampton Medical Officer of Health and the Head and Neck
and Ophthalmic services people who have been misled into thinking that Eye
patients will be immune from the MRSA and C.difficile which is rampant at
New Cross in spite of the devoted efforts of staff. Consider the finality of
the closure of the Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary at Chapel Ash and the
hideousness of the boarded up Class 2 classified building, taken over by we
know not who, but thought to be Modwen developers who themselves are in
trouble with developments at Dudley Castle Hill. Consider, those who think
that because you have a separate building at New Cross that eye patients are
not at risk from these deadly diseases which will certainly kill eye
patients who contract these diseases. Consider the erratic and dangerous
conduct of David Loughton and the management of New Cross Hospital. It is
possible that Loughton will order the redundancies be borne by the new
Ophthalmic Unit at New Cross and that the separation of Ophthalmic Unit and
Hospital will be discontinued. These risks are too awful to contemplate, but
this is the reality we face. It is still possible to reopen the building at
Chapel Ash and we would expect those who have been temporarily bewitched by
their present advanced facilities at New Cross to join in the campaign which
at one time brought a petition signed by 14,000 people for the long term
safety of eye patients.

DENNIS TURNER MADE A FREEMAN OF THE CITY.
I am sorry that I must condemn the granting of Freedom of the City
status to Dennis Turner the ex-Bilston MP. I first wrote about this matter
in an email of 27 Nov 2006. On his retirement from Parliament I wrote a
Tribute to Dennis. I have very personal interest in Bilston where I taught
at Etheridge Secondary Modern School for many years and I am also the
historian of the Labour movement of Bilston.It is the recent conduct of
Dennis which I condemn. First his transformation from socialist chair of
governors of Bilston Community College, the first multicultural college in
Britain, to New Labour right-winger. Then what no self respecting left
winger would do, taking the ludicrous title of Lord Bilston, which makes him
a laughing stock among most Bilston folk. But most of all because in
becoming a Blairite he supports and becomes a party to the illegal wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. The two people most concerned
with the ceremony seem to have been John Davis our present Tory Mayor and
John Hipwood of the Express and Star, both of whom should know better. I
hope to learn of Dennis’s retransformation back to a left-wing citizen. Only
then would he be worthy of the honour granted to him this week.

JAZZ AT THE HARP.
My son, Billy, took me to the Harp, Albrighton, today where we listened
to the splendid Martinique Jazz Band. I took copies of my appeal to Sir Jack
Hayward who piloted gliders in Burma during the war (Blog No73 Tues 20
March) which suggested that he, who was in Burma, might support our campaign
to get the Jazz sessions of the Furthest East Rhythm Club in the World at
Imphal on the Indian/Burma border replicated. Our campaign was supported by
extracts from the minutes of the Club which met each week from June 1943 to
March 1944 and was ended by the Japanese offensive intended to conquer
India, but which, thanks to the biggest air lift ever conducted at that
time, resulted in the three month siege of Imphal surrounded by Japanese
troops, after which the 14th (Forgotten) Army reconquered Burma. The Club
was a unique cultural achievement in a theatre of war with its complete
records, now at the National Jazz Archive at Loughton in Essex and had 52
members one of whom was a Black Country man, Tom Waldron of the RAF from
Wednesbury, and another, myself, who was to become a Black Country man.

A FLURRY OF EMAILS
A further email to Nicola Barber of the Home Office for Sir Trevor
Phillips e.mail address. He has still gone to ground and not answering our
question IS HE IN FAVOUR OF THE WAR IN IRAQ OR IS HE AGAINST? And further,
is he or is he not a proper person to head the new all-inclusive Equality
Unit which most of us think downgrades Race.
Another email to the Walsall Local History Centre suggesting on the
advice of Duncan Nimmo sec. of W’ton History & Heritage Society that they
together with the New Art Gallery in Walsall would be the best organisers of
a meeting which would entice John Harper of Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot of
1892 fame to come here and show his castings of the bomb which once were in
the Walsall Police College but have since disappeared. The similarities
between the so-called Plot on 1892 and the so-called Birmingham Plot where
men are still being arrested and allegedly ‘confessing’ everything the
police want them to confess, but then released without charge is highly
reminiscent of the Alleged 1892 Plot which was set up by a Home Office and
CID police spy, Auguste Coulon.
A further email has gone to Adnam Chaudry the newly appointed head of
the new Race Equality Unit in Wolverhampton asking urgently for details of
its whereabouts.

WORKING CLASS HISTORY
It was grand to read in this month’s History Today of an exhibition of
the Daily Worker’s famous Gabriel (real name Jimmy Friell) whose cartoons
appeared from 1936 to 1956. Gabriel was an example of the high class talent
that the Daily Worker attracted, his work being as famous as Fleet Street’s
greatest cartoonist David Low who also was political, but not so openly as
Gabriel.
Its enough to ask my son Bill to get up into our loft to see if I
haven’t got a book of Gabriel’s cartoons, which I’m sure I had at one time.
The exhibition is on until April 28 at The Political Cartoon Gallery, 32
Store St. London WC1E 7BS. If you can’t get there visit their site
www.politicalcartoon.co.uk and give yourself a treat.
Closely connected with this is an exhibition called Mind-Forg’d
Manacles by William Blake at the Ferens Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Square,
Hull HU1 3RA. Blake was an opponent of the Slave Trade all his life and
included the theme of slavery throughout much of his work. If you can’t get
there visit www.hullcc.gov.uk
Most welcome today was an email from Graham Stevenson of the Communist
Party of Britain giving me a preview of CPB History e-Bulletin No.5 soon to
be downloaded onto the Party Website. Full length features are on the Irish
participant in the Spanish Civil War, the Rev Hilliard and the Indian CP
leader Shaukat Usmani who stood in British elections. A list of the new CP
biographies recently posted on the web is also included.
I fear that Graham’s grasp of IT technology is far greater than mine,
but there was no attachment of eBulletin No 5. for me to download. Also I
am having problems with Graham’s quaintly named www.grahamthewebtailor.co.uk
Is anyone else having the same difficulties? Fortunately he has provided me
with another email address
graham_stevenson@yahoo.co.uk which I shall certainly use and hope he puts on
to the Saturday Morning Star Progressive Website Listing.

TWO LONG CONVERSATIONS.
Today I spoke at length to Keith Wymer and Lance Dunkley. Keith Wymer
was head of Bilston Community College, the first multi-cultural college in
Britain until it was closed by racists and rapscallions including the
Learning and Skills Council and the present management of the University of
Wolverhampton. Wymer was and is the most innovative talent that ever came to
Wolverhampton and he should have been Director of Education in
Wolverhampton. The present situation is that appeals to the Disclosure of
Information authorities shows no reason why the College should have been
closed, but that access to papers has been delayed and show little sign of
being forthcoming, so that repetition of charges against the Learning and
Skills Council (which they never replied to) is endlessly delayed. This at a
time when the world of Bush and Blair is crumbling before our very eyes and
bringing the troops home is the only way of saving either our schools or our
nation.
I have known Wymer since I came to Wolverhampton in 1954. He is, like
me, writing daily, but finding that he is repeating what he said 50 years
ago. Nothing much has changed. This has been epitomised for me by putting on
the web my Statement on the Future of Education in Wolverhampton which was
written in 1963 for the Wolverhampton Communist Party Teachers’ Group. It is
almost identical to my State of Education in Wolverhampton Today which the
Labour controlled council is ignoring by
by issuing unwise statements lauding the state of education in Wolverhampton
when the real position is that black children and their parents might well
have to riot as they did in Birmingham last year to bring their
discrimination to the notice of the government and secondly that there is
not the information necessary to judge of the racism in schools and
playgrounds today. There I will leave Keith Wymer for tonight and read the
BLOG which he has recently started. The other conversation was with Lance
Dunkley.

LANCE DUNKLEY
As with Keith Wymer I have known Lance Dunkley ever since I came to
Wolverhampton. As also with Wymer I shall write something tonight about
Lance, but very much more will be left unsaid and referred to on subsequent
occasions.
Lance first appears in my life as one of a triumvirate of Naranjan
Singh Noor, leader of the Indians against Enoch Powell and Racism, Lance as
leader of the African-Caribbean community and myself as secretary of the
Wolverhampton Communist Party and candidate in local elections who could
speak freely on Racism whereas Labour Party candidates were afraid of losing
votes if they spoke out against Powell, or who were either racists
themselves or so right-wing that it made no difference. Left-wing
councillors such as George Costley (who became chair of the Wolverhampton
Council for Racial Harmony), Jim Woodward, Harry Bagley or Vi Fletcher were
thin on the ground.
From the time that I retired from teaching with a heart condition
(1984/) we lost day to day contact but were once more drawn together as
Lance became a key witness in the Enoch Powell Rivers of Blood Speech in
Birmingham 50th anniversary and it became know that Eunice Parry who
disclosed that the street eventually containing only one white person was
Brighton Place and she was a conductress on a bus driven by Lance. The
latest development in the Enoch Powell story is an undisclosed source
claiming that certain West Indian people wrote to Enoch Powell requesting
him to stop further immigration of ‘black riff-raff’ who would ruin the
town. The very last word so far in this story is that Peter Rhodes chief
reporter on the Express and Star has obtained the name of a woman said to be
one of the people involved. Peter Rhodes has posted a copy of his latest
information to me, but it has not yet arrived and will not do so now until
Monday. Whatever this story is, Lance Dunkley will have a key role to play
in confirming or denying this information.
Lastly, Lance Dunkley is playing a leading role in the 200th
anniversary of the so-called abolition of the slave trade. Lance rung me to
remind me of a meeting taking place tomorrow at Wolverhampton University on
this subject. We have already suggested that we follow the example of Ken
Livingstone in London in apologising for slavery which Blair is not prepared
to do. Also that we urge other towns and cities in the West Midlands to do
the same. I am not able to go to the meeting tomorrow but Lance will be
there putting much stronger proposals than merely apologising for slavery.
Lance believes that apologies can only be made between equals and there
was certainly no equality between chained and shackled slaves and their
white ‘owners’.
Lance will put the case at this meeting for a Foundation of Restitution
which will provide funds for the development of the West Indies and other
areas from which slaves were taken. We will see what response he gets at the
meeting. Lance pursues his politics with great panache and wit. An example
being for Bush and his imperialist wars: wage two and get one free!

ASYLUM SEEKERS IN WOLVERHAMPTON DECEMBER 2006
Courtesy Mike Finnegan I now have the latest figures which he tells me
are up-dated every six months.
The total is 839. This is down from 1181 in Dec 03 to 760 in Jan 06.
Thereafter a fairly steady fall to 568 in May 06 and thence a fairly steep
rise.
The main addresses of them were as follows. WV1 50; WV2 101; WV3 63; WV4 7
WV6 75; WV10 464; WV11 3; WV14 76.
The main nationalities were Iran 103; Iraq 92; Pakistan 73; Somalia 50;
Afghanistan 43; Others 453.
The family composition was 1 person 164; 2 persons 88; 3 persons 153; 4
persons 208; 5 persons 180; 6 persons or more 46.
My first comment would be that most of them seem to come from war torn
countries and we should be proud to uphold a centuries old position of
Britain giving refuge to those whose lives are in danger.
Mr.Finnegan promises to give me, or put me in touch with those who can give
me information on immigrants legal or illegal and also travellers but I do
not have these figures to hand.

MUSHTAK SHAFI
Remember my friend Mushtaq Shafi the Muslim who has Tourettes Syndrome
and requires 24 hour support, but finds his carers leave work at 5-30 and
after that he has no help? I put the question to Glen Mason the health chief
(funny how everybody has a fancy name these days, Glen’s is Director for
Adults and Community). He informs me that he has referred Mushtaq’s case to
Angela Hossack, Head of Services Mental Health to look into. I’m very glad
that Angela will take over because I want fundamental questions asked such
as, is there no cure for Tourettes and is it the case that victims are only
fed up to the gills with unsuitable drugs because there are no suitable ones
and how does the record of Wolverhampton compare with towns and cities.

UNITED STATES COMMUNIST PARTY ARCHIVES OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
This is a matter I am very much concerned about, being, at least
twice in my life time concerned with it personally and having a tremendous
admiration for Communists who bore the brunt of the McCarthy terror in the
1950s. The CPUSA far from being an alien body orchestrated from Moscow was
from the beginning a patriotic indigenous movement. And none more patriotic
that WEB du Bois. As a scholar, a journalist, a creative writer, a political
activist, and the first African American to earn a Ph.D at Harvard. Du Bois
is considered to be the father of the Civil Rights Movement in the US a
founding father of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
Folk, founder of the modern Pan-African movement and the Encyclopedia
Africa. Two of du Bois’ massive achievements were his most famous book, the
Souls of Black Folk which has been through 119 editions since being first
published in 1903 and his famous statement, ‘The problem of the Twentieth
Century is the problem of the Color Line’ A statement that is even truer of
the 21st century.
Du Bois was a member of the CPUSA for most of his life He fist visited
the Soviet Union in 1925. In 1952 under the McCarthy terror he was told to
make a statement denying that he was a member if the Communist Party. This
he refused to do. In 1954 he was refused a passport to attend the World
Youth Festival in Berlin. In 1968 at the end of a long life his passport was
restored for him to go on a world tour. He retired to Ghana to write the
Encyclopedia and died in 1963.
Together with du Bois I bracket Paul Robeson the great all-American
black singer, actor, and footballer whose performances I attended while he
was exiled in Britain and who I met him on a number of occasions, notably in
1958 when he appeared at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton.
Paul Robeson’s commercial career was ruined by McCarthy where he was
asked the same notorious question as du Bois was asked ‘Are you or have you
ever been a member of the Communist Party?’ which Robeson also refused to
answer. In his later years Robeson suffered a degenerative disease, probably
brought on by the dreadful strain of the McCarthy terror. Two black
Communist heroes, but there were lots of white heroes too.
My other contact with US Communists came during World War 2, After the
siege of Imphal was raised I reported sick with the affliction which started
in the dreadfully cold winter of 1940 when in trying to ‘toughen us up’ we
peeled sacksful of potatoes in the open air and I suffered from frequency of
urination from which I have continued to suffer up to this very day although
a couple of pills seem to have almost solved it for me now. I was evacuated
to a hospital in what is now Bangla Desh which was a terrorist centre of the
time until the Communist Party of India was legalised because it supported
the anti-fascist struggle above the Indian independence struggle. The
hospital I was sent to was commanded by a Colonel Carver, whose speciality
was the restoration of penises lost in battle. Despite the comparative
triviality of my complaint I was treated with the utmost civility and began
the series of operations I have described above. Here, I began to get around
me a group of progressive patients and we used to visit the local Communist
bookshop and keep up to date with both world and Indian politics. One day I
was told that a sergeant-major wanted to join our group. At this we were
highly suspicious, but Bill Cutler was the exception that proved the rule,
a progressive warrant officer. Bill had joined the regular army at 17 but
had become politically aware in the pre-war period of the struggle to build
a united front against Hitler and prevent World War 2 and also the struggle
against Mosley and his Blackshirts and the Appeasement of Chamberlain,
Halifax and others which made war inevitable. Bill Cutler served in France
from the first year of the war and was evacuated at Dunkirk and later was
sent to Burma. When he eventually retired he settled in the south-west of
England where there was no Communist Party so his wife, a refugee from
Vienna, joined the Labour party and became a Councillor while Bill became a
leading member of Ex-Services CND and wrote ‘The Soldiers Tale’ an
autobiography, several copies of which I possess.
The last contact we made in Dacca was with the huge US airforce base
ferrying supplies across the Himalayas to China. Here we met Norman Plotkin.
In the land of the free all are equal unless they are black, Jewish or
Communist. Norman suffered from two of these disabilities, he was Jewish and
he was a Communist. However when Norman was demobilised he took advantage of
the massive education programmes for ex-servicemen and he studied in France.
When we attended the World Youth Festival in Berlin in 1954 and travelled
through much of Europe to avoid the Americans who were busy bayoneting
participants, we returned via Paris and stayed at Norman Plotkin’s house for
a few days. We were friends and corresponded with each other comparing the
political situation in our respective countries. Norman later left the CPUSA
after the death of Stalin and the Khrushchev revelations, something for
which I would not blame him. But we were such good friends that I would like
to send a message to him and hope that someone out there knows the present
whereabouts of my good friend, Norman Plotkin.

DAVID CAMERON AND THE WAR IN IRAQ.
We have again contacted the Tory leader pointing out that his support
of the war in Iraq makes him a war criminal and a lap dog of Blair as Blair
is a lap dog of Bush. Cameron once opposed the war in Iraq when
contemplating the probable result of the next general election. This is
likely to be a hung parliament with the Tories in a coalition with the
Lib.Dems. who have opposed the war from the beginning and Cameron as prime
minister. But now it seems that the next prime Minister will be the war
criminal Gordon Brown pursuing the same policy in Iraq as Blair while Iraq
disintegrates before our very eyes.

APOLOGISE FOR SLAVERY.
Sunday March 25, 2007 marks the bicentennial commemoration of the
passing of the act to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Last night we
suggested that we follow the example of Ken Livingstone in London and rally
Black country towns and cities to apologise for our people.
The National Black Boys Can Associations is calling for one minute of
silence at 1.00 pm on Sunday 25th. This is the least we can do as British
people whose ancestors were the largest slave owning nation in the world,
where chains and instruments for shackling slaves and instruments of torture
were manufactured and to which we were indebted for our prosperity.

CLOSURE OF WOLVERHAMPTON EYE INFIRMARY.
I had an email yesterday from an organisation I had not heard of before
called Head and Neck and Ophthalmic Services, Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary.
It said that the Eye Infirmary has now moved to its own building on the New
Cross Hospital Site and we are confident that the new building will be a
major benefit to sustaining our good record of infection rates.
We replied as follow:
We hope you are right in believing that because you have a new building that
infections on the New Cross Hospital site can be avoided. However the
incidence of MRSA and C.difficile at New Cross, the inefficiency of the
Board led by David Loughton, Loughton’s personal campaign to close the Eye
Infirmary, the lack of relevant statistics concerning rates of infection and
personnel infected, all point to the folly of closing the Eye Infirmary. The
disclosure of inefficiencies at Queen Elizabeth Hospital which have affected
our wounded soldiers in Iraq could easily occur at New Cross. We can
understand your enthusiasm for your new facilities at New Cross, but please
bear in mind the larger picture.

CHARLES PARKER DAY CONFERENCE FRIDAY 30 MARCH 07
The fourth Charles Parker Day Conference run by the Centre for
Broadcasting History Research is being held in Birmingham. Hosted by the
Dept. of Media and Communication at the University of Central England. This
year’s programme includes Gillian Reynolds (Daily Telegraph); Bert Hogencamp
(Utrecht University); Sian Roberts of Birmingham Libraries Connecting
History; and Ben Harker (author of the forthcoming biography of Ewan
McColl). The venue is the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design Corporation
Street, Birmingham.
Charles Parker believed passionately in the ‘oral tradition’ and its
relation to folk music. He made radio programmes with blind people, workers
in China, protesters against the Vietnam War and other minorities denied a
voice in the historical records. His remarkable Radio Ballads made him
famous world wide. The day will be devoted to Parker’s work and appreciation
by others who follow his tradition.

HARDLY TIME TO THINK.
So many things are happening that there is scarcely time to think.
Another long session with Joe Davies. He had been to a Service of
Thanksgiving and Commemoration of the Airborne Campaigns in North America,
the Mediterranean and North West Europe on 18 March 2007 at Royal Airforce
Shrewsbury conducted by the Rev.Preb Christopher Thorpe BA. Hon Chaplain to
the Glider Pilot Regiment Association Midlands, and Assault Glider Trust.
The memorial programme gives a history of Airborne Campaigns from which I
abstract the following. The Airborne Campaign began on 10 Feb 1941 when a
group of parachute infantry and engineers blew up an aqueduct in Southern
Italy. Sadly all the participants were captured but their work caused
confusion and uncertainty amongst the Italian and German forces. The first
glider raid Operation ‘Freshman’ was on 19 Nov 1942 involved 2 Horsa gliders
each carrying fifteen Airborne Engineers on a mission to destroy German
heavy water production at Vermok in Norway. Dreadful weather conditions led
to confusion in the tugs and gliders. Both combinations and one tug crashed
on the return leg, with several fatalities and injuries. The survivors were
helped by civilians, but captured by the Germans. On 18 January the severely
wounded were strangled and the rest shot by a firing squad. After the war
many of those responsible for the deaths were given various sentences by War
Crimes Tribunal.
The airborne assault on Sicily was made in two operations in early July
1943. ‘Ladbrooke’, the first and largest, involved glider troops from the
1st Airborne Division being landed close to the Ponte Grande bridge which
they were to capture and hold. The bridge was captured quite quickly, and by
dawn there was a substantial defence force. A few days later on ‘Fustian’
the glider borne section of 1st Parachute Brigade landed at Primasole
Bridge.
Operation ‘Tonga’ was the initial airborne assault on Normandy (5/6
June 1944) by the 6th Airborne Division. The two outstanding events of this
operation were the taking of the River Orne and Caen Canal bridges by glider
troops of the 2nd Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and the overwhelming of the
Merville Battery by men of the 9th Parachute Battalion.
With regard to the difficult operations at Arnhem and the subsequent
German offensive which threatened to clear the allied troops back across the
sea, a series of circumstances meant that the airborne force was isolated
from its relief column. On 26 September less than 4,000 members of three
groups were evacuated across the Rhine near Arnhem. Nearly 12,000 had
arrived by glider or parachute. 6th Airborne was again in action in the
Belgian Ardennes from the end of December 1944 until the following February.
Sub-zero temperatures and thick snow were often as hazardous as the enemy
but the division played a huge part in stopping the German advance.
On 24 March Operation ‘Varsity’ was a combined 6th Airborne and US 17th
Airborne operation. This was a final attempt to winkle out the last segments
of German defence and strike for Berlin. Because of the Glider Pilot
Regiment’s great loss at Arnhem several hundred RAF pilots underwent a
conversion course for glider flying. 60% of the regiment’s fatalities on
‘Varsity’ were from this group.
So now you know the difference between Gliders and Pilots and what Joe
Davies taught me on my long sessions with him. But Joe takes responsibility
for all Airborne forces.
Joe originally volunteered to be a Parachuter, but he broke his knee
while playing football and after that was only accepted to be a Glider. One
of our important people is Joe.

SLAVERY
If someone sends me an email I reply to it whether it is friendly or
unfriendly. Such a common courtesy is becoming rarer however and I was
pleased to receive a reply from Ken Livingstone the mayor of London
acknowledging my email on the Serious State of Education in Wolverhampton.
This quoted his statement that for fifty years black males had been betrayed
and his demand that teachers and other educational personnel should reflect
their proportion in the London population and also that the school
curriculum should more relevant to the multicultural times. Incidentally,
the Mayor of London has apologised on behalf of the London people for two
hundred years of slavery on he bicentenary of the abolition of slavery which
Blair refuses to do. In the Black Country we have a goodly array of events
commemorating the bicentenary, but we need to have a similar declaration of
regret from Black Country authorities which were involved in slavery and
manufactured chains and instruments of torture. How about setting an example
for Wolverhampton, Roger Lawrence, and the organisers of Connecting
Histories in Birmingham with the City authorities there.