The Barnsby Blog

JOHN PILGER
Peerless critic of Neo Conservatives. Here is an extract from his
article in the latest issue of the New Statesman:
How does thought control act in societies that call themselves free?
Why are famous journalists so eager, almost as a reflex, to minimise the
culpability of political leaders such as Bush and Blair who share
responsibility for the unprovoked attack on a defenceless peoples, for
laying waste their land and killing at least 100,000 people, most of them
civilians, having sought to justify this epic crime with demonstrable lies?
Why do BBC reporters describe the Invasion of Iraq as a ‘vindication for
Blair’? Why have British broadcasters never associated the British or
American state with terrorism? Why have such privileged communicators, with
unlimited access to the facts, lined up to describe an unobserved,
illegitimate, cynically manipulated election, held under a brutal occupation
as ‘democratic’ with the pristine aim of being ‘free and fair”?
Shades of our five Lords of the Fourth Estate. Jeremy Paxman, Andrew
Marr, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Martha Kierney, all members of the British
ruling class by virtue of their education at ‘public’ schools and
Oxbridge, all of whom betrayed their profession by never tackling Blair on
the war in Iraq. This has changed in recent weeks when both Paxman and
Martha Kearney have made vigorous attempts to make Blair confess to his
guilt of the war, but for the 35th time now they have been too arrogant to
reply to a plebeian like myself.
John Pilger is now doing a stint at Cornell University at New York as a
visiting professor. I cannot find his email address, so I’m using the
University address in the hope that it will reach him. Or perhaps my new
found Aussie friend who I as yet know only by his christian name of Neil can
find John’s email address for me.

JOAN BAEZ CONCERT.
The world renowned folk singer and political activist is in
Wolverhampton next week. Saturday July 7 at the Civic Hall, North Street at
8pm. Joan played an important role among entertainers in opposing the war in
Vietnam. We have no entertainer in Britain today capable of playing the same
role against Bush and Blair. The nearest approach is Attila the Stockbroker
who was at the Wolverhampton Trades Union Council May Day social. We shall
be contacting him today.

TWO BYE-ELECTIONS.
Anyone who does not realise that Blair and Gordon Brown are peas from
the same racist pod should take note of the spin concerning the two
by-elections taking place on 19th July designed to prevent any opposition
developing. For instance the one in Southall where the MP has died is a
constituency where Respect did fairly well at the General Election. Here a
Respect candidate has again been nominated. On Tuesday 3rd July there will
be a public rally with George Galloway MP introducing the Respect candidate
at 7-30pm at the Southall Community Centre, Merrick Rd. Supporters are asked
to support the rally.
The second by-election is at Sedgefield the constituency of no less a
renegade than Tony Blair. We are sure that tens of thousands will want to
rally to Sedgefield to see that Tony Blair is given a reception worthy of a
war criminal.

FOUNDING CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL SHOP STEWARDS NETWORK.
For those who like to believe that our trade union movement is dead
and buried the above conference will come as a shock, especially one day
after the CWU was obliged to call a successful one day strike.
The above Founding Conference will be held at South Camden Community
School, Charrington St. London NW1 1RG from 11am to 5pm on Saturday 7 July.
Many workplace representatives and local trade union activists feel the need
to link up with others to pool experiences and strengthen the organisational
sinews of the movement.
Organisations are asked to sponsor the Conference and send delegates. A
minimum sponsorship charge of £50 is suggested and £5 for delegates. Local
union activists will also be welcome as visitors.
Coming at a time when our first 2 million strong Union UNITE has been
formed and talks for British trade unions to amalgamate with the leading
union body in the USA are under way to form the first world trade union the
conference is very timely.

ITEMS

National Shop Stewards Conf.

Neil Australia

Robert - Burma expeert.

Local issues

Joan Baez

New Statesman

MORE WELL CHOSEN WORDS ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE BLAGGARD BLAIR.
Nasir Khan, a good friend of ours domiciled in Norway and author of the
remarkable book, ‘Perceptions of Islam in the Christendoms, a Historical
Survey.’ is the first to congratulate me on last night’s BLOG. He deserves
to be quoted at length since I could not put the matter better myself.
‘Normally any adult who deliberately commits homicide is arrested,
tried and punished. So is the case with a serial killer who kills more than
one person. Blair and his Washington boss, Bush, are not ordinary killers
who have committed one or a few murders. They are the war criminals whose
actions have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of men, women and
children in Iraq. They are also the protectors and master-minds behind
Israel atrocities in the occupied territories of Palestine. Now one major
war criminal has been made a Peace (!) Envoy by the other war criminal. Why?
Because Bush has the POWER to impose his decisions on the Quartet. And the
Poodle is quite conscious of that. A MASS MURDERER OF THE ARABS IS MADE AN
ENVOY FOR THE ARABS !!!

HISTORY OF CHARTISM.
A correspondent from Australia who gives only Neil for his name asks if
I have any information on an ancestor of his, Cornelius Hikin/Hickin, born
in 1814 at Brownhills, who was jailed for six months for rioting on 11
October 1842 at the Stafford Assizes Special Session to deal with Chartism
and apparently mentioned in my book ‘The Working Class Movement in the
Black Country 1750-1867′. Would I have any information on him? I’ve sent
him what details I have on Hickins. One was Joseph Hickin a Chartist leader
in Walsall who came to Chartism via the middle class reformers of Walsall.
He was licensee of the Windmill Tavern and the leader of the revived Walsall
Political Union in 1838. He was elected one of the Black Country
representatives to the General Convention of the Industrious Classes held in
Birmingham in February 1839.
After this he is thought to have become a fulltime secretary of the
Anti-Corn Law League. But after that we have no contact.
Cornelius Hickin appears only once in my book on pages 110-111 where
there is a full list of all those sentenced at the Special Commission that
sat at Stafford in October 1842 . Here Cornelius Hickin was sentenced to
six months hard labour for offences alleged to have taken place at Norton
Canes. My collection of short biographies of all leaders and rank and file
Black Country Chartists I have been able to research will appear in the new
edition of the Dictionary of Labour Biographies due to be published at the
end of this year.
I promised Neil that I would mention this in my BLOG and this I have
done. Does anyone, anywhere know more about Cornelius Hickin?

FAREWELL THE DOOG.
The funeral of Wolves legend Derek Doogan takes place at St.Peter’s
Church at 1pm next Thursday the 5th of July. The coffin will stop at the
Molineux after the service for players, officials and fans to say goodbye
and pay their respects to the man affectionately known as the Doog. Former
team mate, Dave Wagstaffe, will be one of the pall bearers together with
Derek’s three sons. Already it is clear that ex-colleagues will be coming
from as far away as Canada as well as all parts of Britain. Frank said it
shows the esteem with which Derek was held.
Dougan played 323 times for Wolves scoring 123 goals over eight
seasons.
This perhaps not the time to raise it, but the Doog is another
candidate for Wolverhampton’s unique Sporting Hall of Fame, and I am sure
someone will raise it before long.

HARRY JOHNSON AND THE FURTHEST EAST RHYTHM CLUB IN THE WORLD.
I had an all too brief visit yesterday from Harry Johnson,
co-originator of the Imphal Rhythm Club. We discussed for the first time,
what happened to us when the siege ended, Harry with his inseparable friend
Ken Allsopp, co-founder of the Rhythm club, and a few other colleagues
remained with 4 Corps on its offensive through Burma because as signal
personnel they were indispensable, but most of its aircraft were moved to
another theatre of war in SE Asia. Harry told me of the sad end of Ken, who
was many years after struck by a motorist without a driving licence and
received head injuries which left him unable to recognise anybody,
including Harry.
It was at the time when they were both at Imphal, that they might have
encountered Jack Hayward, who, Harry was surprised to learn, was flying
gliders at that time and has gone on to become a fierce British patriot and
philanthropist, being responsible e.g. for brining the Great Britain back to
its native port of Bristol as well as owning and financing the team the team
of the town where he was born, Wolverhampton Wanderers.
My future was rather different. I was granted home leave for medical
attention to a long-term complaint of frequent micturition, and did what I
could not to return to Burma. However, so many on leave were playing the
same game that everyone almost without exception was returned. So where was
my unit, 4 Corps HQ, when I returned? I think it must have been Meiktila and
later at Toungoo and then Pegu where we remained until Rangoon was captured.
At the mention of each of these towns Harry was nodding sagely, because he
also was acquainted with each of them. Some time after the capture of
Rangoon I was transferred to a military hospital and there I remained,
helping to organise the People’s University which upset the pre-war civil
authorities then taking over the administration, because the Peoples’
University was open to both whites and Burmese students. This opposition was
an indication of the racism that existed both then and after in both the
army and the civil administrations.
It was there that I formed the strange desire that I, who left school
at 15, should study at the London School of Economics. A dream that
eventually became true.
But Harry Johnson had other ideas on his mind when he came to visit
me. By a professor at Birmingham University, Ralph Ponting, he was
recommended a book called ‘Argument of Kings’ by Vernon Scannell. This had
been a best seller in the 1980s. It told the story of a soldier in the
Gordon Highlanders who walked away from the field of battle when he saw
fellow soldiers stealing from the dead bodies of comrades. He was picked up
by the military police, walking back to Tripoli. John Bain (his real name)
was sentenced to three years in the alternative hell of detention barracks
in Alexandria. The routine of endless brutalisation wore the men down. After
six months he returned to fight in Normandy where he received wounds in both
legs. Overstaying hospital leave brought further punishment. He lived to
celebrate victory in Europe in May 1945 when he left the army for the last
time. Harry gives me all the time in the world to read this book and then he
will visit me again to pick it up. We have both known of such brutal
treatment to soldiers who had the pluck and determination to be Pacifists.
After his visit I now visualise Harry playing his 78s jazz records each
evening with a picture of him and his friend Ken with Humphrey Lyttleton on
the wall. Come again soon, George, and long may you live to enjoy life and
jazz.

PERCY STALLARD AND THE WOLVERHAMPTON SPORTING HALL OF FAME.
Today’s welcome visitor was Robert, husband of Percy Stallard’s
daughter, Yvonne, himself a cyclist of note and battler in the cause of
Percy’s recognition. He took away with him, the official form to nominate
Percy for a place in the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame. What I did not
know was that he and Yvonne have been battling for many years for
recognition of Percy. That since the Broad Street shop cannot be demolished
that Percy’s workshop where he manufactured the frames of the bicycles he
and countless others rode, then this should be restored together with the
vast number of cycling magazines that he meticulously numbered and kept in
racks. These magazines subsequently found their way to the Black Country
Living Museum and then on to the National Cycling Archive in Wales where
they remain. There have also been negotiations for a Blue Plaque to be
erected. This would be no problem at the shop in Broad Lanes which Percy’s
son kept and is still in the family, but it is at the shop at Broad Street
where it should really be, but the young people running this scheme these
days have no idea of who Percy was so that the matter is not being pursued
with any vigour.
Today’s discussion centred round an email I had sent to Jehayne Potter
at Aldersley Stadium suggesting that we make a formal application. This had
not been done by George Griffiths, a life long friend of Percy’s and another
renowned cyclist, who it seems just wrote a letter to the Express and Star.
George’s health is not very good at the moment and he is not therefore
available to take part in processing an official application. So it has been
provisionally decided that Yvonne, Percy’s daughter will initiate an
application on the form with which we have been provided. And I thought that
those in charge of the Roll of Honour would be as pleased as us at
supporting Percy’s application.
Not so. Yesterday I received an email from Jehayne Potter as
follows. ‘Citations can only be distributed at the discretion of the Sports
Advisory Council, following consultation your request has been declined’.
So we will reply asking when the meeting took place which rejected our
application, on what grounds it was rejected and who are the members of the
Sports Advisory Council who rejected it.
To reaffirm her absolute hostility to Percy’s application she requests
that she no longer receive copies of my Daily Blog, which one would have
thought that a person interested in sport in this City might well wish to
look at occasionally. I shall reply that I will take her off my list, as
she requested, but that I reserve the right to send her copies of any that
concern sport in Wolverhampton.

BLAIR AND THE FRONTISPIECE OF THE BLOG.
Blair has gone, not quite in chains, as the BLOG would have liked, but
certainly in a way that will necessitate a redrafting of our opening slogan.
This quotes Wolverhampton MP, Ken Purchase’s sharp dictum, ‘I’d give him
ten minutes to clear his desk’
Up to date as we always are, I fear our customers will have to wait a
few more days before the BLOG is changed due to the fact that our
super-efficient Web Master, Martin George, is taking a well earned vacation
and will not be back until Monday 2nd. July. I think, however, that we can
give a preview of what the new opening will contain.
‘This blog is dedicated to the people of Wolverhampton and beyond. It has
two main aims.
1.To drive the Blairites and New Labour from the Labour
Movement which they have usurped and return it to its original Socialist
principles.
2. To raise Wolverhampton from its position of being regarded
as the racist capital of Britain in the days of Enoch Powell to one of the
main centres
of Multiculture, Education, Culture and Sport.

ARSENAL AND WOLVES.

STILL NO REPLY FROM ADNAN CHAUDRY.
Let’s deal with local affairs tonight. Sir Trevor Phillips OBE
ex-CRE chief (’the war in Iraq is not within my remit’) closed Wolverhampton
Race Equality Council which was the oldest REC in Britain controlled by its
two main ethnic minority groups, Afro-Caribs and Indians. The decision was
not endorsed by the local City council who ring fenced monies to set up a
new Race Equality Unit in Wolverhampton. In January 2006 the process of
recruiting a new chief executive for this organisation began and later in
the year a chief executive was appointed named Adnan Chaudry. He was
provided with a mobile phone which never seemed to be switched on, but later
he informed me by email that the organisation was situated in Chapel Ash on
the second floor of the building whose main tenant was the City Primary Care
Trust. Then we were told there was a delay in fixing a phone, so again
nobody could contact them. By this time I was very worried. I wanted to know
what sort of an organisation it was, whether it was a democratic one which
would elect its committe or a Blairite one which would appoint members. Also
the fact that the state of education in Wolverhampton was, despite showing
very positive trends was basically at a point where no one knew what racism
was occurring in the schools and play grounds and the black community might
feel it necessary to use violence, as occurred in Birmingham last year, to
have their legitimate demands for equality attended to.
So I began to ring round to ask what other organisations in the
City knew of the existence of this new Race Equality Partnership. I rang
Roger Lawrence the leader of the City council and he knew nothing about the
organisation. I rang the Rev.Tony Finch of the Methodist Church in
Wolverhampton which has large number of black members in its congregations
and he knew nothing about REPW. Today I have rung Lynne Stodart, Research
and Assessment Manager of the Education Department, who has kept me supplied
with statistics in default of any other organisation in Wolverhampton
providing them and she knows nothing about REPW.
However, there is one ray of light at the end of the tunnel.
Warinder Juss has been appointed a ‘governor’ of REPW and he is a delegate
to the W’ton, Bilston and District Trades Union Council and I know Warinder
from WREC days. So when I can contact him at least two of us will know
something about this organisation.
But what a disgraceful state of affairs this is. Adnan Chuaudry is
being paid good money to run a public organisation. Why will he not contact
me or anyone else. What can I do next, consult a missing persons bureau, or
perhaps even the police. Come off it Mr.Chaudry, come out with you hands
up!

CODSALL HIGH SCHOOL
Seldom can a man have received such a deluge of criticism as Keith
MacGann who suggested as a result of a few months teaching at the school
twelve years ago that Codsall High School was on the slippery slope of
degeneration. This as a result of an incident of vandalism and violence that
occurred on the school bus back to Wolverhampton some months ago. In fact
that incident was resolved satisfactorily, since when there has been no
hooliganism associated with the school. Moreover, far from being a failing
school Codsall High is a school with exam results higher than the average
for both Staffordshire and the country as a whole. The numerous letters to
the Express and Star give opinions of pupils of the school who have
subsequently been to University and those who have become teachers, all
expressing their appreciation of teachers at the school. Then Mr.McGann had
also criticised Perton as a backward country area whose children neither
wanted or received education fitted for children from towns. Such
reactionary views as lowering the school leaving age to 14 again, have
received a real roasting from McGann’s critics. Good for them!

ARSENAL AND WOLVES CAN SAVE US
Despite rumours to the contrary both Arsenal and Wolves are
determined that their clubs should not be taken over by foreigners. Arsenal
are sustained in this belief both by the views of Arsene Wenger and also the
club’s board of directors. At Wolves, despite the delay caused by Sir Jack
Hayward’s family trusts, the deal with Steve Morgan for sale of Sir Jack’s
shares for £10 in return for assured investment in the club of £30 million
with Sir Jack having a seat on the Board and a veto on non-football matters
should be confirmed within the next ten days.
These two examples show that it is possible to save our football
clubs from the clutches of foreigners. Moreover the experiences of Sir Jack
on the national scale show that Britain’s basic industries such as car
production and general engineering can be saved from the maws of Chinese and
Indian low cost producers as well as the ‘free competition’ of the European
Union and World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

BLAIR THE NON-HISTORY MAN.
Never can their have been so despicable a person with a veneer
of social charm as Tony Blair. Tonight he has gone and good riddance. To
think that he has anything to offer in his new appointment of Envoy to the
Middle East is like appointing a fox to guard the henhouse. This is the man
regarded by most of the world as war criminal, serial killer and the vandal
destroyer of irreplaceable monuments of ancient civilisation. They will want
Blair put away where he can do no more harm - arrested and tried for crimes
against humanity.

THE SAME OLD SPINNERS AND LIARS
Harriet Harman becomes the surprise Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
because she agreed with Jon Cruddas that the war in Iraq was the decisive
factor in the failure of Tony Blair’s leadership, also she attacked the US
prison camp at Guantanamo and the extra-rendition which allowed the US to
fly so-called suspects across our territory.
But having climbed that slippery pole she spent yesterday denying
that she ever said such things and licking the boots of Gordon Brown who is
as guilty as Tony Blair of war crimes. So this is what we can expect from
the Brown brigade.
On Sunday outside the Labour Party Conference were 7,000 rain soaked
protesters, yet neither press nor newscasters, as far as I know, reported
the fact that they were demanding not only a change of leader, but
repudiation of the war in Iraq and the bringing of the troops home. Among
these protestors were the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and
representatives of US protestors against the war. The British people remain
firm in their hostility to the war and Harman should follow suit.

ARSENAL AND WOLVERHAMPTON PATRIOTS OBJECTING TO THEIR CLUBS’ SALE TO
FOREIGNERS.
We dealt with this matter fully in yesterday’s BLOG. To summarise on
a position that has not since changed, the Arsenal board are still repelling
foreign invaders and the Wolves board are insisting that their take-over
should be by a British conglomerate and Sir Jack Haywood should be a member
of the board with a veto on certain matters. Is this the way forward not
only to save our football clubs but also our basic industries?
In talking of the disasters of teams being owned by foreigners, we
made the error of saying that Aston Villa had been taken over by an
ex-premier of Thailand, this should have read Manchester City. Villa have
already been taken over by the American Randy Lerner where opposition has
taken the form of demanding at least one seat on the board. In Manchester
City’s case a show of openness was displayed by having a poll asking fans to
approve the takeover. Unfortunately this seems to have been taken over by
Manchester United supporters who are enthusiastically voting ‘Yes’ to their
deadly rival’s plans to be taken over and employ the ex-England manager,
Sven-Goran Eriksson

WOLVERHAMPTON’S SPORTING HEROES.
It is not only Percy Stallard, the man who revolutionised cycling in
Wolverhampton and Britain, as a candidate for immortality in Wolverhampton’s
unique Sporting Hall of Fame, but also Derek Dougan who sadly died
prematurely this week. It is possible to admit candidates posthumously in
exceptional circumstances and Derek Dougan might well qualify. But now a
third candidate has reappeared - Paul Ince, the first black man to captain
England at football. Ince faced the racism in Wolverhampton which is wide
spread in Britain of accepting equality for black players but not extending
it to administrative personnel such as trainers and directors of clubs. So
Paul had to move to manage a League 2 side, Macclesfield. But he has now
been offered a manager’s job at the MK Dons Wimbledon club where resources
are more plentiful. He deserves every success and we congratulate him, but
it would be great if he could eventually return to Wolverhampton and became
part of the new team being built here.
A development on the Percy Stallard question is a letter in
tonight’s Express and Star from Geoff Hill of Stourbridge stating that he
will support any move to sponsor Percy. He worked for Percy at his Broad
Street shop, and was a fellow cyclist in Wolverhampton Racing CC. Geoff won
the BLRC national junior time trial championship when he was seventeen and
working at Percy’s shop. He also rode in the first Tour of Britain from
Brighton to Glasgow. He was also the first paid racing cyclists within a
team of three racing for Hickman Cycles of Dudley. A chapter on it all is in
his autobiography, ‘From Riches to Rags’ which is available for £11
inc.postage from Geoff Hill’s Charitable Trust at Tinkers Cottage,
Lawnswood, Stourbridge DY7 5QP. All the money goes to charitable causes of
which 100 different ones have been helped to date. I shall be one of Geoff’s
first customers.

DEREK DOUGAN.
There is only one topic of conversation in Wolverhampton today - the
death of a legend, Derek Dougan. Derek scored 123 goals for Wolves in 323
senior games. He then turned his many talents to trade unionism, eventually
becoming chair of the Professional Footballers’ Association. In that
capacity he played an important role in freeing players from the crippling
powers of clubs to withhold the registration of players so that they could
not move to new clubs.
In 1982 Dougan became engaged in the ultimately disastrous role of
owner and director of Wolves. In May 1984 Wolves were relegated from
Division 1. Gates slumped from 26,00 to 6,000. In June 1984 he appointed
Tommy Docherty as manager but the club continued to struggle with rumours
of financial trouble and of players not being paid . In January 1985 he
resigned with Wolves in danger of relegation which duly occurred in May.
Derek was a charismatic and controversial character all his life. My
abiding memory of the political Dougan was his appearance in the 1980s at a
Peace Conference we organised in Wolverhampton to bring the divided people
of Northern Ireland together and to give their children a week-end respite
from the Troubles. This was misinterpreted by right-wing people as an
attempt to bring terrorists into Wolverhampton and as a result no hall was
available to us except at an exorbitant payment for insurance. The result
was that the meeting had to be held in the smaller premises of the
Wolverhampton Race Equality Council where Tom Rock, the Roman Catholic
priest and a minister from the Protestant church in Wolverhampton with
speakers from Northern Ireland from both sides of the political divide spoke
at a very successful week-end supported by Derek Dougan. It is to my intense
exasperation that I cannot find a copy of the 16 page or so Report of the
Conference which was published, promising further such meetings and
conferences to help bring all sides together. My best chance is from the
fact that many of my papers were deposited with the Wolverhampton Archives
as heart attacks and strokes brought me premonitions of mortality. How about
it David Bishop, can you find me a copy of the Report?

THIERRY HENRY
The theme today continues to be sport. 70 years an Arsenal fan and 50
years a Wolves supporter, that’s me.
Arsenal appear to be in torment as Thierry Henry moves to Barcelona
and the future of Arsene Wenger himself appears to be in some doubt. What
seems to be intact, however, is the determination of the Arsenal board to
resist the encroaches of Stan Kroenke the US billionaire to take over the
club and to see that the club remains in British hands.
This seems to be the reverse of the situation in other clubs where
directors and fans alike are ignoring the implications of their clubs
falling into foreign hands in the belief that globalisation is inevitable
and the only way of ensuring the vast billions necessary to remain
contenders in the Premiership is to see their clubs go multi-national. And
this at a time when the take-over of our basic industries to low-pay India
and China and the ‘free trade’ policy of the European Union and
International Monetary Fund and World Bank is at last being rejected.
Apart from the monstrosities that such a process brings such as
Manchester United being bought with borrowed money bringing crippling
payments in interest charges or Aston Villa being bought by a Thai ex-prime
minister wanted at home on charges of financial defalcations.
It is ironic in all this that Thierry Henry has gone to a Spanish club
which is not for sale to foreigners, and yet can still find the large funds
to bring Henry to the club.
As for Arsenal it might be that things turn out for the best. That
Arsene Wenger stays. That Henry is past his best and will only fleetingly
perform for Barca what he did for Arsenal. That the youngsters developed by
Wenger notably Fabregas can win honours next year, and Arsene Wenger’s
belief in his youth development programme allows him to say to anyone
offering him £100millions that he can tell him to put it to other uses.
On the other hand the world might turn to Sir Jack Hayward, fierce
British patriot, and what he is doing at Wolverhampton Wanderers. Weary of
funding Wolves, yet determined that it should not fall into foreign hands,
he has sold the club for a nominal sum to a syndicate that will guarantee
£30million to be spent on developing the team.
He remains a member of the board with a veto on matters not pertaining to
players.
Between them, the patriotic position of the Board at Arsenal, and the
actions of Sir Jack Hayward give hope that the sale of our football clubs to
foreigners can be halted, just as can the sale of our basic industries
abroad.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE - AGAIN.
Last night in talking about Blairism and Brownism (which is the same
thing even if some Labour Party members kid themselves it is not), I
discussed the three main trends now that Gordon Brown is king. These are 1.
That the LP can be transformed to do the job, 2.That the LP cannot do the
job so a new, broad Party such as RESPECT must be developed and 3. That
Communism will be brought about, as Engels thought, by the
self-organisation of people in their social and economic life and politics
and the state would be consigned ‘to the dustbin of history’.
Having declared myself one of the latter group and a Marxist, I, rather
lamely suggested that organisation was necessary.
But by then it was past midnight and my eyes were drooping, so I want
to have another go at it today. I talked of modern communications and the
fact that we (excuse the third person but I sometimes need to talk of those
who agree with me, not knowing whether they can be counted in hundreds or
hundreds of thousand.) I recounted how I hit on the idea of using the BLOG
in the very first weeks of its invention and what excellent dividends it has
paid. So I next discussed other modern devices to see whether these would
assist our cause.
I use the two main sites in Britain commentisfree@guardian.co.uk and
haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk but cannot quantify its results. I have tried
Wikipedia, YouGov, YouTube and the like, even the very latest fad Facebook
which is used, I am told in today’s Observer by such celebrities as Ian
Hislop, editor of private eye, who accepts all comers it is said (I’ll have
to ask him why he supported the closure of Bilston Community College), silly
little Hazel Blears who has come a cropper today, Peter Hains, ditto, and
good friends such as Boris Johnson and Ming Campbell (who was asked if he
wasn’t a bit old for this sort of thing and was too miffed to reply).
I don’t see that any of these organisations splendid as they are suit
the purpose of my BLOG which has two main aims of defeating New Labour which
has usurped the principles of the early Labour Party, and raising
Wolverhampton from the Racist capital of Britain in the days of Enoch Powell
to a leading centre of Education. Sport and Culture at the present time.
They are too general for our purpose.
We need a system that brings together all the Links of working class
movement Web Sites and binds them together to promote actions and research.
Is there such a thing? Who would undertake it? Or am I barking up the wrong
tree? Answers please.

PERCY STALLARD.
And who better than Percy Stallard, the cycling hero, to represent the
City in Wolverhampton’s unique Sporting Hall of Fame. Not only was Percy as
popular and respected in his day as Billy Wright, not only did he win
competitions and medals, not only was he still racing and innovating at the
age of 86, but he revolutionised the sport he loved by introducing road
racing to Wolverhampton and Britain. Percy had to fight the conservative
administrators of the sport all his life and was also an atheist and a peace
lover.
I have today contacted George Griffiths, Percy’s lifelong friend, who
first made the application for Percy’s admission to the Hall of Fame, but
George is now so old and frail, that he is unable to make an official
application for Percy to be admitted. Together with Percy’s oldest daughter,
Yvonne Bolton, and distant relation Roy Stallard, (the man who led the
campaign to save our 120 year old Eye Infirmary from closure), we shall now
make a proper application (George did nothing more than write a letter to
the Express and Star) and I’m sure we will have the staff at Aldersley
Stadium where these matters are decided and all sports loving citizens of
the City joined to welcome Percy to his rightful place not only as a sports
hero, but one of the City’s most eminent citizens.

BOOKS.
The Observer today reviews two books with which this BLOG has been
closely concerned. This raises the question that there is now no space in
the Barnsby abode for more books, nor the time to read them. This is a
dilemma for a Blog noted for its originality, but I think it will have to be
a bit of each. The first is a book called Fateful Choices: 10 Decisions that
changed the World 1940-1941. This has been hailed as an epoch breaking book
examining decisions over a period of just two years and Ian Kershaw himself
as a laid back author who simply waits for events to happen. I criticised it
at the time for not understanding that the event which was decisive in
determining the future of the world was Hitler’s decision to invade the
Soviet Union. But Kershaw’s methodology marks him as a modern historian to
be reckoned with; that the Second World War grew out of the sense of
injustice of the settlement of the First World and although it occurs
outside the period of the book, the Holocaust.
The second book is Gunter Grass’s ‘Peeling the Onion’. This is a
belated attempt to settle accounts with the fact that Grass was, as a youth
drafted into the Waffen SS, and he has only recently revealed the fact. But
Grass ever since has led an exemplary life as an anti-fascist activist and
an author of world distinction. Grass was a defender of the German
Democratic Republic in days when it was not popular to do so. He pointed out
that while there was full employment in the GDR, which there was throughout
its existence, no racism existed. This contrasts with the position today
when East Germany has mass unemployment and its citizens are being forced to
migrate to the west. I shall refer this book to my friend Rudi Achtelstetter
who I have known since the 1950s when I first went to Potsdam to teach at a
course for German teachers of English and who, as we grow older cement the
friendship of he a German soldier and me a British soldier who fought
against each other but both learned that Workers’ of the World should unite
for Peace and a multicultural world.

A CROWN OF THORNS FOR BLAIR.
As Tony Blair turns to a new venture in joining the Catholic Church, he
may well find that he finds no peace, but only more sorrow. Firstly, the
German Pontiff who will become his new master, is, like the majority of his
fellow citizens opposed to the war in Iraq. Secondly the Catholic church
believes in Hell and the everlasting fire as the fate
of those who lie or commit such vile acts as Crimes against Humanity .
Since we should not want to inflict such tortures on our worst enemies, I
suggest Blair considers an offer of us Atheists, the largest party in the
world, who do not believe in God or Heaven and Hell to join us and avoid the
perils he now faces.

THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE.
Today saw the departure of Blair as leader of the Labour Party and his
replacement by Gordon Brown with a new Deputy Prime Minister, Harriet
Harman. We have had to listen to Blair’s hypocritical cant of his undying
love of Gordon Brown and Brown’s doleful incantation that he will not change
anything fundamental in Blair’s disastrous policies of war and
privatisation. And not a word of the rain soaked demonstrators outside
demanding a complete change of policy.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE.
As we split between those who would force Gordon Brown to change the
Labour Party and thus save the world, those who think a new party such as
Respect is necessary to achieve this, and others who think politicians have
had their day and wider coalitions of people should come together, I
struggle to define my position. I start with my position in Henwood Road. I
am humbled by the amount of talent in this part of a single street. All of
us are in one sense ‘middle class’. Yet we are almost without exception
from working class backgrounds. Both middle class and working class need to
be re-definded.
Two Jewish geniuses dominated the twentieth century, Marx and Einstein.
If capitalism was a satisfactory way of organising society there would be no
need for Marx, but it clearly isn’t and therefore I declare myself a
Marxist. The only thing which might invalidate that is if Einstein’s Theory
of Relativity suggested an alteration in the nature of man through some form
of Darwinian Evolution. But I don’t think it does.
Marx and Engels envisaged a transition from capitalism to communism not
by a state, which would ‘wither away’ but by the self-action of groups of
people and their organisations which would ‘consign the state to the dust
bin of history’. This seems to be happening before our very eyes with
politicians being regarded only with varying degrees of contempt and state
action ridiculed as people try to get on with their lives.
The paradox is that until we reach Communism which assumes a Utopian
degree of education in putting the interests of the community above
self-interest the world needs organising to bring the potential self-acting
organisations such as trade unions, women’s guilds, and myriad social
organisations together.
Is this problem fundamentally different from that of the nineteen
thirties when modern concepts of united action developed? My own experience
is imperishably shaped by what is called the Civil War in Spain, but
was in fact the war of intervention by the Germans and Italians. In Spain,
the United Front was forged where all was subordinated to defeating the
fascists. It was from Spain that I developed a dislike of anarchists and the
Trotskyist POUM who attempted to implement their own brand of land
redistribution or socialism and thus neglect the wider struggle against the
Nazis and fascist of Germany and Italy..
I recognise that the principles of the United Front were not always
implemented properly and that a generation of socialists grew up imbibed
with the principles of Maoism. But the principle of United Front should
surely be adhered to in this complex, intricate, computerised world of
multiculturalism.

REQUIEMS FOR TONY BLAIR.
This week Tony Blair departs the British scene, ten years too late many
will think. Tonight has seen the most devastating attack on Blair with
Andrew Rawnsley’s programme ‘The Rise and Fall of Tony Blair’. This is the
most important critique of Blairism since Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s ‘Yo, Blair’
and Francis Beckett’s, ‘The Court of the Blairs’.
Tomorrow is the People’s Day as thousands in Manchester march to the
Labour Party Conference to demand that Gordon Brown change his policies and
pulls out of Iraq.
Brown’s reign was initiated in a Newsnight programme last night when
reporters put ten questions to Brown. I was particularly pleased to see
that Martha Kierney pushed Brown very hard on the question of the war in
Iraq. This means that two of the five who failed to question Blair on Iraq,
i.e. Paxman and Kierney have now changed their stance. But at present it is
hopeless. Blair and Brown are like two peas from the same pod on the
question of supporting the illegal and racist war in Iraq.

PERCY STALLARD.
Today Percy Stallard’s daughter, Yvonne Bolton, visited me as promised
leaving copies of stacks of Percy’s papers. He revolutionised the sport in
Britain by introducing road racing to which the then governing body the
National Cyclists’ Union was bitterly opposed and expelled Percy and all
those who favoured road racing. In 1942 taking advantage of the fact that he
was an engineer on war work in a reserved occupation and also that motor
traffic was almost absent from war time British roads, Percy convened a
meeting at the foot of the Long Mynd on Easter Monday attended by riders
from all over the country and revealed his plans for a race from Llangollen
to Wolverhampton. When the race took place on Sunday June 7 it was supported
by all the police forces along the route including the Wolverhampton force.
Percy continued to initiate new ventures such as the 1951 London to Holyhead
race. In the 1960s he visited both Australia and the USA. In 1966 he
conceived the idea of climbing Mount Witney, the highest mountain in the US,
but in descending found himself for two days not seeing another person and
in temperatures rising to 100 degrees F. found that his water had run out.
At the age of 82 he was still innovating with a Veterans Society and was
eventually brought low by an injured hip and went into an Old Peoples’ Home.
Percy was always a thorn in the flesh of authority. He was also an atheist
and an opponent of war.
It would be ironical if those who have the authority to admit or refuse
Percy to the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame should oppose Percy as so
many authorities did in the past.

BLAIR REVEALS OFFICIALLY HIS CATHOLICISM
This BLOG’s concern with Blair’s religion dates back to May 2003. Then,
in a letter accusing him of lying on the question of the war in Iraq we
said, ‘Other charges against you are that you are a religious zealot
governing Britain not by its democratic processes, but through your
encounters with God and, like Oliver Cromwell, if you think you are doing
‘the Lord’s work’ there is no atrocity you would not perpetrate. Therefore
you are not a fit person to be in charge of a secular, democratic country
such as Britain. This is a most serious charge. How do you answer it?’
Needless to say he did not answer it. Today it is the turn of the
Atheists, the non-faith of the vast majority of people of this world to
raise their voices and declare not only with Karl Marx but currently with
Richard Drawings, that religion is the root of all evil and all Religionists
must question their part in the evils of the modern world.

QUESTION TIME AND THIS WEEK.
Nothing demonstrates the depths to which our TV programmes have plumbed
in sycophancy to the mistaken notion that western civilisation is the
highest form of political ideas yet know to mankind. Yet it all began so
promisingly with Shirley Williams, spokesperson for the party that has never
supported the war in Iraq and two of my favourite Tories, Boris Johnson and
Christopher Hitchens on Question time and Dianne Abbott, one of the original
war opposers in 2003.
Yet Shirley Williams virtually denied her party’s stand on the war and
none of them put the obvious fact that Salman Rushdie’s acceptance of an
‘honour’ by an out-moded racist long since abolished monstrosity as the
British Empire was bound to be seen as kow-towing to his imperialist master.
Nor did any of them recognise that Benjamin Zephaniah had led the fight
against accepting such baubles. Also that any white person or organisation
who stoop to meddling with such matters as Companions or Orders of the
British Empire are guilty of Institutional Racism whether it be PEN
International or the men from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The Rushdie affair could be settled now by his refusal of the award
which he should do if he is an honourable man. But the eradication of
Institutional Racism will take very much longer. And I must say how
disappointed I was with the two men I thought were my friends, Boris Johnson
and Christopher Hitchins.

NGAIO CREQUER.
I was saddened to learn belatedly of the early death of Ngaio Crequer
at 55 on 28 September 2006. She was one of the most brilliant education
journalists of her age and in the 1980s played a leading role in exposing
Institutional Racism first on the Independent newspaper when it was launched
in 1986 and latterly as the Further Education correspondent on the Times
newspaper.
She was the first member of a working class family in Manchester to go
to University, so it was natural that she would see through the racists and
bigots who closed Bilston Community College and was an enthusiastic
supporter of its work. Even posthumously she was one of our main witnesses
when we applied for the first Paul Foot Award for Investigative Journalism.
This is sponsored by the Guardian and Private Eye both of whom were guilty
of supporting the closure of Bilston Community College, so it was no
surprise that we gained neither the award nor an explanation of why it was
not granted. But Ngaio will also be one of our main witnesses as we apply
for the 2007 Award and hope that the prejudices of the sponsors will not get
in the way of an objective judgement of the current award.

KEITH WYMER
To add urgency to the above item, I have today received papers from
Keith Wymer, late principal of BCC, which appear on his website
www.sportforallglobal.com This not only condemns the racism of those who
closed Bilston Community College including the quangos who control
education, first the Further Education Funding Council and now the Learning
and Skills Council, but raises the wider question of the continuing
deprivation of working class poor whites and ethnic minority pupils of
access to Further and Higher Education which is common knowledge now and to
which the racist middle classes who control education and all other matters
are now paying lip service and claim they will put right when in fact they
are part of the problem not the solution.

MIDSOMER DAY FROLICS
Not only will the days never be longer after today for another twelve
months, but I have encountered friends old and new today that makes it a
pleasure to be alive in this new, strange multicultural year of 2007.

PERCY STALLARD.
Via Roy Stallard who is a distant relation of Percy and distinguished
in his own right as author of ‘Wolverhampton Hospitals Heritage’, also one
of the leaders of the campaign to save our famous Wolverhampton and
Staffordshire Eye Infirmary from the clutches of Wolverhampton’s MRSA and
C.difficile infested New Cross Hospital, Roy has introduced me to Yvonne
Bolton the only living relation of our famous cycling legend, Percy
Stallard. She will bring round to me tomorrow documents carefully preserved
by Percy regarding his racing successes. These will be important in
supporting his friend George Griffith’s application that Percy be admitted
to the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame. I look forward with much
interest to meeting Yvonne.

BE-ME AND SLAVERY
The key sources for post-1807 History of the Slave Trade we have
identified as Ricky Stennett’s book Bukra Massa Pickney, Ricky actually
experienced slavery himself, Marika Sherwood’s, ‘After Abolition, Britain
and the Slave Trade since 180′7, and James Walvin’s, ‘The Trader, the Owner
the Slave’. Also important for the history of slavery in Birmingham is an
organisation Connecting Histories which brings historians together in the
West Midlands. Brimingham is important because much of the Evangelical
leadership of the campaign against slavery was based in the Midlands as well
as the hypocrisy that allowed these same Christians to benefit from the
slave trade.
Important also is BE-ME a Wolverhampton organisation based on the
Empire Windrush which has interviewed large numbers of West Indian
immigrants of that generation and which all of us who know this should
co-operate to see that it is used to the best advantage in our schools and
other institutions..

THE BLACK DIASPORA
The importance of the campaign by VOICE, the African-Caribbean paper,
to attempt to solve the terrible problems of Africa by African efforts alone
and that white people like Geldof are part of the problem not part of the
solution is emphasised by the announcement today of the military commander
in Afghanistan that it will be take at least ten years to solve
Afghanistan’s problems. This is evidence of the impossibility of white
people with their illusions of the superiority of western civilisation to
solve any problem. Their only function today is to remove themselves and
leave the people of the region whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or
Lebanon to solve the problems left them by the imperialists.
Equally absurd is the idea that Blair has a future as a Peace Envoy to
the European Union. The only future for Blair is as an inmate of a prison
for those who have committed crimes against humanity.