The Barnsby Blog

SELLING BRITAIN DOWN THE RIVER - AGAIN.
Yesterday’s BLOG received the full treatment today. Dispatched to
comentisfree@guardian.co.uk and also haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk it also went to
almost 200 special addressees including Rachael Heyhoe Flint for Sir Jack
Hayward and Adrian Chiles the Baggies football mad man now with a nightly
TV show, as well as all sport commentators and political people who have yet
to make the political connection between the sale of our football clubs to
foreigners and the sale of Britain to foreigners.

CONNECTING OUR HISTORY TO BRITAIN.
An email from Eddie Dare, the editor of the Socialist History Society
newsletter raised the vexed questions of how many of us who have so far
borne the brunt of maintaining History Group activity are getting no younger
and how best to bring young talent into the study of the working class
movement.
Ed was musing that with rail fares so exorbitant historians could no
longer afford to travel to London and suggesting that the Socialist History
Society be split between a Northern Society and a Southern one. This sounds
like a good idea with so many Communist archives in the north, especially
the official CPGB archives at Manchester University and the Working Class
Movement library at Salford.
But I began to think that there ought to be a Midlands section also as
the Midlands have much going for it. There are the archives of much of the
midlands car industry and important papers such as those of Dick Etheridge
the leading car industry shop steward at Warwick University. We also have
the Black Country Living Museum with it continuing interest in the chain
makers as the Chain Makers’ Institute was taken down brick by brick and is
now reassembled in the BCLM with its annual tribute to Mary MacArthur, the
chain makers’ leader.
Then we have something unique as far as I know called Connecting
Histories. It deals with general history, but contains important working
class material. Based on the Central Library in Birmingham where several
leading historians of the labour movement are based, it publishes a frequent
newsletter. It is also the repository of important collections of papers,
films, videos etc. such as the Charles Parker Archive, a nationally
significant resource for the social, cultural and political history of
Birmingham, the West Midland and Britain. Recent developments under Izzy
Mohammed its very resourceful Community Access Officer have been a basic
guide to using archives to plan and manage your personal research. Also a
discussion forum for postings on the histories of Birmingham and its
communities. This is a facility to ask questions, seek information or to
make a comment. The west midlands is also fertile soil for black studies
where many of the Evangelicals opposing the slave trade were based, but who
were canny enough not to let their principles get in the way of making money
from the slave trade.
My 50 odd year sojourn in the Black Country has resulted in a large
collection of material and the raising of issues, some of them
controversial. For instance I raised the question of the origins and
development of the CPGB Group in Burma during WW2. John Angus was the leader
of this group, but it was discovered that he left no papers and therefore
the ultimate winding up of the group cannot be determined. What is known is
that some accusations were made by some Resistance groups of British group
interference in Burmese politics. Some evidence for this is to be found in
Robert H. Taylor’s book, Marxism and Resistance in Burma 1942-42. But the
death of the principal witness to this question has left this matter
unresolved.
I also raised the question of whether there were two CPGB History
Groups, the first an ‘elitist’ one of the main developers of Communist
theory e.g. Christopher Hill, Edward Thompson, Eric Hobsbawn etc. and the
history group that I attended for many years where most of the big names did
not appear. This led on to the question of where the records of the History
Group were. Ex-secretaries were asked to state where the records were for
their period of office. Most said that they usually kept them themselves and
my claim that I probably held the most complete set of papers on the CP
group; these will find their way into the Wolverhampton Archives Department
when I pass on. The position is not very satisfactory but with the ending of
the CPGB Group and the modern position of an open, non-sectarian Socialist
History Group it is likely that it will not be resolved.
So, to Eddie Dare’s suggestion of two Groups North and South I would add
a Midlands group. But that does not end the matter. My GB Working Class
Library (to which was added) Free Communist Bookshop was the only one that
was based on the library of Ruth and Eddie Frow’s which became the Working
Class Movement Library in Salford. I had hoped that such libraries might
spring up in a number of different areas of the country, but this has not
happened, although it might do in the future.
With regard to new, young blood taking over. I will quote the example of
the University of Wolverhampton where at least six young or not so young
historians have appeared who have had progressive material printed in
historical journals including History Today. But none of them has
participated in either the political or historical activities of the
University which used to be the stage through which people like Jack Straw
were apprenticed into the politics which became their careers. Whether this
is a general problem or not I do not know. But both Eddie Dare who edits the
SHS Bulletin and myself who is at a late hour writing my 203rd Daily Blog
know that modern methods of communication and discussion are necessary to
solve these problems.

SELLING BRITAIN DOWN THE RIVER.
The penny is beginning to drop Only Arsenal and Wolves can save not
only our football teams but Britain’s basic industries. Today’s Observer
Sport Monthly has an article How Foreign Tycoons Bought Football’s Soul. Tom
Bower discusses in detail the implications of all our main clubs being sold
and David Conn writes of What Money Cannot Buy, the fact that the main
continental teams are not for sale, certainly not Barcelona and Real Madrid,
or the German teams of the Bundesliga.
The sale of our clubs to foreigners is the responsibility of the
Football Association, but relentless pressure of the Money Bags, means that
it will not fulfil that role without support from the government which it
not only refuses to give, but actively supports the sale of our football
clubs as part of a free trade policy.
Bower sets out the present grim situation. The FA’s failure to
investigate the background of foreign nationals buying British clubs has
fostered the myth that the Premiership can only flourish in the world if it
is taken over by foreign investors.
Consider the consequences. It started with the Russian, Abramovitch.
He was allowed to buy Chelsea for £150million. He could now resell the club
for £500million or more. The chief executive of the Football Association,
Richard Scudamore, has welcomed the foreign takeovers as ‘irresistible’. But
Scudamore himself is now at risk as the owners of the nine Premiership teams
discuss replacing him by a foreigner. Having spent their milllions on clubs
and players they are impatient about present profits. Scudamore they believe
is an amateur, only an American can market the Premiership. Paul Zahavi,
responsible for brokering Abramovitch’s purchase of Chelsea asks the
rhetorical question, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? BRITAIN HAS SOLD ITS BANKS, ITS
GAS, WATER AND ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES EVEN ITS AIRPORTS TO FOREIGN
COMPANIES…SO WHY NOT FOOTBALL CLUBS? The answer to that question is
patriotism and the fact that Arsenal under its present merchant bank owners
and Wolverhampton Wanderers und their super-patriot Sir Jack Hayward have
been able to keep their football teams British and the super-patriotism of
Sir Jack Hayward has set an example that could save our basic industries of
car manufacture and engineering. But what cannot now be avoided is the
political question put by my two economics mentors William Keegan of the
Observer and Larry Elliott of the Guardian (after all I did go the London
School of Economics and became the first working class secretary of its
Communist Society) who have succinctly put the contrast that under Tony
Blair and New Labour Britain has moved from owning the largest empire in
the world to being owned by the rest of the world. Our only sporting
salvation is with Arsenal and Wolves. Our only economic salvation as the
storm clouds of economic depression gather is to throw off ‘free trade’
which is now ruining much of Eastern Europe and now threatens both Britain
and the USA is to remove New Labour from office and reclaim our nation from
those who have given it away.

A DAY WITH THE FAMILY.
It is a tradition in our family that on the birthday of any member the
family goes for a meal, all members paying for their own and the birthday
boy or girl goes free. This time it was the turn of No.2. son William. Both
my sons are named after famous socialists William Morris, and No.1 son
Robert Owen. Both, to my relief, have come to accept and perhaps even be
proud of their names, and certainly both are good Socialists.
William’s partner is Maggie, a robust no-nonsense Catholic of Irish
descent with many relatives in Ireland. Maggie runs a mobile health check
clinic which keeps her running her van both early and late in the day.
Robert’s partner is Carole (always known as Cal), another no-nonsense girl
of Bilston extraction who once was a shoe designer at Edge’s a noted shoe
manufacturer in Bilston, long since extinct. She now is a long-term employee
of the local DIY emporium and leads their bosses a lively dance as both a
highly capable and artistic employee who is virtually irreplaceable.
Another diner at the feast was Maggie’s younger daughter Laura, a
really nice modern miss with implanted nose and tongue decorations. Then
there was Rachael, Maggie’s first daughter, and her fiance James, both of
them teachers in local primary schools who have some sympathy with my BLOG
and my theories of education. In addition James is a footballer of some
standing and was once a steward at the Wolves with an admiration for Sir
Jack Hayward.
Another of our traditions is that the birthday person chooses the venue
and Willie chose a brand new restaurant on the site of the Low Level
Wolverhampton Railway Station which is being re-developed.
The venue appealed to me as an area of which I was in my younger days a
historian of, but age and infirmity means that I have forgotten most of what
I knew. Their most spectacular triumph was as the organisers of a South
Staffs rally to greet Feargus O’Connor, the legendary Chartist leader in
March 1842. This at a time when Chartism was at the peak of its influence
and Joseph Linney was the leader of Black Country Chartism.
My report reads: ‘It was the largest concourse of people ever seen in
this part of the country. Bilston, Wolverhampton, Willenhall, Walsall,
Wednesbury and surrounding villages were posted with large bills giving
notice of the procession and stating the time and manner of the various
processions to the railway station at Wolverhampton’. Much other detail is
included including the ‘immense multitude’ moving off in the following
order: Herald and two flag bearers with the motto, PEACE, LAW AND ORDER.
Large green banner with motto, WELCOME THE DEFENDER OF THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS -
O’CONNOR THE BRAVE. Large flag with motto WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT LIBERTY.
Large concourse of Irishmen, motto UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND REPEAL OF THE
UNION. Large banner with motto FEMALE CHARTIST ASSOCIATION OF BILSTON.
Splendid silk banner, motto NATIONAL CHARTER ASSOCIATION COUNCIL OF
WOLVERHAMPTON AND BILSTON. Splendid green banner with motto CIVIL AND
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY; THE WHOLE CHARTER AND NOTHING LESS. Open carriage and 4
beautiful bays in which seated FEARGUS O’CONNOR’.
That was only part of the procession. There followed a large number of
local Black Country Chartist associations marching ten abreast and so the
report goes on to tell of the difficulties of obeying the marshal in the
narrow streets of Wolverhampton, hundreds being pushed up to their knees in
mud at the side of the roads, the good humour of the crowd and, the speeches
made by O’Connor and local Chartists.
At this time the Bilston Association was one of the largest in the
country and if other areas had been as strong the government would have been
forced to grant Manhood Suffrage which was what the four points of Chartism
was about.
But the government did not grant the Charter and men like Feargus
O’Connor and local leaders such as Joseph Linney were arrested and
imprisoned. So ended the second phase of Chartism. Black Country Chartism
was never so powerful again but continued into the 1850s.
Chartism is often regarded as a a failure, but with the 1867 Reform Act
which gave the vote to male householders most of the points of the Charter
were quickly achieved.
It was my great pleasure to have been the first person to research the
history of Black Country Chartism. It was due to the accident that I came
from London and was able, during school vacations to research at the
Newspaper Library then at Colindale the working class newspapers, not only
of Chartism, but of all subsequent working class movements which are the
most important source of labour history.
Such are my reminiscences from today’s meal. But as I often say, when
you’ve lived to be 88 you’ve seen many things that bear repeating.

THE STATE WE ARE IN.
I am being pressurised by the local community to re-print a letter in
the Express and Star last night . I won’t do that but I gladly give the gist
of the letter and the surroundings in which it took place. The letter is
headed, The passing of an English Gentleman, and it is by a man called
Barry Hill of Pelsall. He says on behalf of my generation I attended the
funeral of Arthur Priest aged 82 who represented for me and my mates our
first contact with the adult world. Arthur was our youth club leader, but
most of all our first football club manager. However, a much younger Arthur
was also a member of the Parachute Regiment and would tell us (when asked)
sparing the nasty bits, but always preaching duty, manners, loyalty etc. As
Arthur’s coffin came down the aisle I was tempted to shout Well What For
Lads?
Then as we filed out of the church there was a sight that will live
with me for a very long time - a guard of honour, all Arthur’s age and more
bolt upright and to attention saluting not only
Arthur’s coffin draped in the Union Flag but everyone who walked behind.
Truly magnificent. Again I thought Well, What for Lads?
THIS DREADFUL VILE GROUP WHO CALL THEMSELVES A GOVERNMENT (I HAVE
VOTED LABOUR ALL MY LIFE) HAVE ALLOWED EVERY PIECE OF RUBBISH, DRUG BARON,
WARLORD, PIMP, PROSTITUTE, ORGANISERS OF TERROR, THE LIST COULD GO ON , TO
ENTER THIS ISLAND OF OURS….TO ALL THE POLITICIANS OF ALL THE CURRENT
PARTIES YOU DREADFUL, DREADFUL PEOPLE. THIS ISLAND OF OURS DESERVES BETTER.
YOU HAVE LET US ALL DOWN!
This letter has touched the hearts of local people who read this BLOG
and I am proud to have printed it. There were other letters on the same
night expressing only slightly less eloquently the same sentiments. And
letters opposing the wars appear every night in the Express and Star. But
this is because it is a very special paper which has opposed the war in Iraq
almost from its beginning in 2003, the only newspaper that I know of with
such an anti-war record.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Meanwhile people in the progressive movement are asking the same
question. The ball was set rolling by the Morning Star printing an article
by Robert Griffiths, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain
asking Where is our strategy? after showing that the capitalist ruling
class always have had a long-term strategy to head off action to overthrow
it, but the working class has only had a short term vision of trade union
action and a revisionist Labour party.
The question was taken up also in the same paper by John Pilger. He
brings up the question of the press misrepresenting Iraq as a question in
which ‘we’ are involved and ‘the coalition’ and every hint of criticism goes
down the black hole of subterfuge. This is the crux of my war against
Paxman, Marr, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney who have now on 38
occasions not answered my charges that their failure to challenge Blair on
the war has made them accessories to that war. Pilger quotes as a supreme
example of deceit the question of David Aaronovitch (son of Communist
parents) now the most virulent supporter of the war interviewing Tony Blair,
the supreme war monger, on his memoirs.
But Pilger goes even deeper into the matter He quotes Terry Eagleton
the literary and cultural critic stating that there is now no eminent
British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of
the Western way of life. Only Harold Pinter remains. This ends he legacy of
Shelley and Blake, Carlyle and Ruskin, Morris and Wilde, Wells and Shaw.
There is now the gravest risk to Democracy perhaps going back to Socrates in
Ancient Greece as Bettany Hughes continues to persuade us.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft delivers the coup de grace however in reviewing
Alistair Campbell’s Diaries and warning David Cameron not to copy, ‘ There
was everything for an honourable Tory to dislike about the Blair junta - the
meretricious vulgarity, the intellectual dishonesty, the cheap demagoguery,
the sheer deadly emptiness at the heart of New Labour’.

LINDSAY HUTCHINSON
My list of those who oppose the war in Iraq is a long and cosmopolitan
one including not only progressives such as Pilger, Eric Hobsbawm, Stuart
Hall, Marika Sherwood and others but also right-wing stalwarts such as Henry
Porter, Boris Johnson and Geoffrey Wheatcroft. But Lindsay Hutchinson is a
very special type of anti-Blairite who must be allowed to have his say.
Lindsay is not only a Stalinist and proud of it, but also a supporter of
Enver Hoxha the Albanian Stalinist leader. In fact he holds the copyright to
the works of Hoxha.
Lindsay runs the only progressive bookshop in Birmingham at 93 Nineveh
Road, Handsworth and his displays of Stalinist literature make his shop
window a target for all anti-Communists. The shop, however is open only
three days a week and is financed by Lindsay working the other three days in
the Bull Ring centre as a skilled electrician. Lindsay also runs a youth
club of young Brummies that he is intensely proud of and issues a Bulletin
lambasting the Birmingham city council for its attempts to close the club.
Lindsay is so sectarian that few who refuse to accept his Stalinism are
exempt from his bitter criticism. Not to be wondered at that Lindsay is
sometimes seen as a trouble maker and even a figure of fun. Until now he has
refused to employ the instruments of capitalism including joining the
revisionist B’ham Trades Council or even having any truck with imperialist
inventions such as computers. A clown he certainly is not even if he does
enrage right-wing Labour councillors and trade union officials.
But Lindsay has mellowed recently as far as accepting being a delegate
from his trade union to the B’ham Trades Council, and he has now issued a
Birmingham Trades Council News bulletin, which is at one and the same time a
left-wing history of the Trades Council and the story of Lindsay’s
sufferings for the cause.
In 1993, the year before it was banned by Mick Rice, the May Day march
down New St. was greatly enlivened by the electricians with their slogans
the Labourites are worse than the Toryites. Since then the offensive against
the working class has seen the electricians’ trade union liquidated.
Lindsay Hutchinson, recklessly loyal to the old revisionist Electrical
Trade Union was first elected by Birmingham Midland branch (EEPTU) as a
delegate to the Trades Council in 1978. It was ruled then by the Labourites
that he was ineligible because he was a ‘member of the Communist Party’ from
which he had been expelled 10 years before for resisting a police attack on
the Grosvenor Square demonstration. The following year R.Rider, branch
secretary attempted to have Brother Hutchinson, by then a shop steward at
Chubb’s Alarms expelled from the union. but failed. Hutchinson was
subsequently elected several times as a TC delegate but this was thwarted by
Lord Frank Chapple who eventually ensured that the branch should be closed.
In 1980 Chapple sued Lindsay for ‘malicious libel’ for tens of
thousands of pounds and the case went on for 10 years. By then according to
Lindsay, Mick Rice had reduced the Trades Council to a handful of branches.
He continued to be in trouble. He criticised Polish workers in terms which
were said to be both homophobic and racist. His actual words were ‘The push
into Poland for monopoly lebensraum has destroyed the Polish economy and
forced its lumpenproletariat to tramp around Europe in search of starvation
wages’.
Hutchinson claims that the president of the TC was replaced by a
Government Inspector (called a development officer) and Hutchinson twice
assaulted by security officers and police, arrested several times, locked up
and after a two day trial acquitted by a District Judge. In another case he
was threatened for denouncing the war in Yugoslavia and Iraq.
He has subsequently received his 30 year service Badge from the Amicus
District organiser. Hughes, it seems, is still in charge of the Trades
Council and Lindsay hopes that they change their policy to one of opposing
the war in Iraq.
This is an account of the development of the trades council over thirty
years which some will consider one sided. Hutchinson has denied this in his
voluminous writings which he will willingly provide to anyone who seeks
them. We need more, talented battlers like Lindsay Hutchinson in the labour
movement.

ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY
My 200th Daily Blog. Who would have thought it. And what better way to
celebrate than with my transatlantic hero, Michael Moore.
Michael writes enthusiastically of the US response to his film
‘Sicko’. How from Seattle to New England he learns of groups of people
meeting after seeing the film to plot actions to support H.R.676, the United
States National Health Insurance Act. This is sponsored by Rep.John Conyers
and 76 other members of Congress. Groups are springing up to demand that
candidates for the next Congressional elections and all Congress members not
only support the bill but also follow the example of Senator Sherrod Brown
of Ohio, who refuses to accept his free, government run, health insurance
until EVERY American is covered. Take a Republican to see Sicko and send the
ticket stub to him and it will go in for a draw for Moore to come to their
home and do their laundry, just as happens in France.
Michael believes that eventually Americans will tire of being shafted by
the same insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms and will demand
universal, free health care.
Just at the time when our Brownites are busy privatising our National
Health Service.

MORE HISTORY
I take this opportunity to return to my first love - History in
general and the history of the Communist Party in particular. This means,
these days, the Socialist History Society and its journal Socialist History.
I begin with its latest Newsletter edited efficiently as usual by Eddie Dare
who always seems to make a quart fit in a pint pot. A controversial lecture
by Gidon Cohen, the new editor of Socialist History, on the relations
between the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party. The ILP was
formed in 1893 and was the forerunner of ‘ethical socialism’ rather than
the Marxism of the CP. Differences occurred particularly in the 1930s when
the ILP supported the POUM movement during the war of intervention against
Spain, erroneously called the Spanish Civil War. There were differences
again in 1939 when Stalin declared the war an imperialist one, healed when
Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. Harmony was restored until
the end of the war and Labour’s sweeping victory in 1945, but was breeched
again as Attlee and Bevin supported Churchill in instigating the Cold War.
The ILP disaffiliated itself from the Labour Party in 1932, some members
joining the CP but a small rump exists to this day.
Another lecture by Alison Drew in March , an author with a fine body of
work on South Africa was on State and Protest in Post-apartheid South
Africa. For me who first contacted the South African CP in 1942 on my way to
India and got my first lesson in internationalism from the only Party there
that included Blacks, the present state of S.Africa is almost too painful to
contemplate. Nor could Alison give much hope for the future analysing that
the main gain has been the emergence of a black bourgeoisie aligning itself
with its white counterparts with the COSATU trade unions compromising
themselves by associating with those in power. And worst of all the
differences between Mbeki and Nelson Mandela poisoning everything.
The best hope for the future she sees in the emergence of new social
movements on issues such as anti-eviction, HIV/AIDS and opposition to
private landlords which holds out the prospect of a black/white new force of
progressive politics.
Yet another recent SHS lecture was on, ‘Kenya, Repression and
Resistance in the Struggle for liberation in Africa’, by Stan Newens and
Desmond Fernandes which took place in June. Stan, as well as being Vice
Pres. of SHS has been also a Labour MP and MEP as well as being chair of
the Movement for Colonial Freedom which is now Liberation. Desmonde
Fernandes is the author of several forthcoming books on the nature of
Turkish State Terror and also Human Rights Abuses in Colonial Kenya.
It must be emphasised that these SHS lectures are of a quality not
surpassed elsewhere and are an indication of what Post Modern Marxist
studies will contribute to shaping the modern multicultural world.

SOCIALIST HISTORY NO.30. 1956 AND THE NEW LEFT.
Krushchev’s secret speech, the Suez invasion and Russian intervention
in Hungary mark 1956 as a common reference point for the emergence of the
New Left. An editorial be Gidon Cohen summarises the contributions to the
issue. Lesley Hardy argues that EP Thompson’ contribution to the New Left
had fundamental agreements with F.R.Leavis. Grant Pooke argues that Francis
Klingender, the art historian, was a key figure in the understanding of the
culture of the period. Sebastian Berg discusses Intellectual Radicalism
after 1989 in Britain’s New Left Review and it US counterpart Dissent.
Dorothy Diamond discusses Being friendly with the other Germany, the GDR,
and finally David Renton asks Has the Left Lived Differently? in his writing
the biography of Socialists.
All these chapters interest me, particularly those that bring in
activity at the London School of Economics such as John Saville discusses,
and where I became the first working class secretary of the Comsoc.
But most of my concerns centre around Dorothy Diamond’s article on
Education in the GDR of which I know something as I attended the Summer
Courses for Teachers of English at the Pedagogische Hochschule in Potsdam.
An important member of the GDR university community was Len Jones. It
was true that he was a dyed in the wool Stalinist. In fact his children
wrote denouncing him as such. But Len was much more than that as a teacher.
He was at the Regis School in Wolverhampton, part of a Teachers’ Group which
produced a plan to convert secondary modern schools to Comprehensives in our
document of 1963 and he supported the GDR regime until its fall. Len was
also an important advocate of Workers’ Theatre as well as a language
teacher with an article on the ‘Pre-Present Tense’!
It is not only Len Jones that Dorothy Diamond neglects to mention. There
was also Joyce Stebbens who was the person responsible for recruiting
English teachers to the Summer School for a number of years in the 1970s.
And finally there was Dave Morgan and his wife Marguerite who taught for 25
years in the GDR and were the most influential witnesses to its decline and
fall. Dave self-published his autobiography in 1992, ‘A Short History of
Dave Morgan’ and later, as a member of the Communist Party of Britain a
booklet (no date) Looking Back to Look Forward where he presents further
evidence on how and why the GDR ended. None of this evidence appears in our
literature of the society. I am also surprised that no mention is made of
Douglas Garman. He became national education secretary of the CPGB and was
influential in framing education and general policy in the nineteen thirties
and forties. He resigned from his position as he disagreed with other
leading members of the Party.
This has been only a cursory outline of the material raised in the
Dorothy Diamond article. The article itself tells of her tremendous work in
popularising the GDR particularly among trade unionists and teachers. But
the evidence presented here needs be included in assessing the victories as
well as the defeat which brought an end to ‘existing socialisms’.

PAXMAN, MARR, JON SNOW, KIRSTY WARK AND MARTHA KEARNEY
It has given me some grim satisfaction to Report the Lords of the
Fourth Estate, Paxman and Co. to the Head of the BBC Mark Thompson and the
Head of ITV, Lord Grade. with a recommendation that in ignoring 37 times my
challenge that they failed to question Blair on his illegal war in Iraq they
thus became an accessory after the fact of that monstrous crime. Also in
ignoring the Rules of Trust for which the BBC have been given such a
battering in the last few days they deserve the penalty of ‘zero
tolerance’ that Mark Thompson has promised. It is no great inconvenience to
email these rapscallions, as indeed I will continue to do if I get no
satisfaction this time round. But it will be satisfying to get them off my
back. I have also reported them to OFCOM

IS SIR TREVOR PHILLIPS A SUITABLE PERSON TO BE IN CHARGE OF RACE RELATIONS?
No reply yet to my charge that unless he is prepared to denounce the
war in Iraq, Trevor Phillips is not a suitable person to be in charge of
Race Relations in Britain. But I did have a reply from Olivia Skinner, the
editor of CATALYST the CRE’s allegedly hard hitting, open to all opinions
publication. I wrote to her some months ago for refusing to print my
criticism of Phillips. I also wrote to her last week saying that unless she
printed my root and branch criticism of Phillips the paper was not
fulfilling its role. This time round I have received an email from her, but
it is to tell me that the money has run out and there will be no more
editions of the paper. It looks as if the Phillips lobby is clearing the way
for the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which is fatally
flawed by having Phillips in charge of it.

TWINNING THE BLACK COUNTRY WITH PALESTINE
This is the greatest idea I have heard for some time. A link is
proposed between Walsall and Kobar , a settlement of about 4,000 people
outside Ramalah. The idea arose from a Birmingham twinning suggestion with
Ramallah. A meeting to set up a formal twinning committee will be held on
Tuesday 30th July at 7-15pm at Palfrey Community Centre, Milton St. Walsall.
People from the Black Country as well as Walsall or welcome at the meeting.
Very soon, it is hoped we shall be able to have links with the long
suffering people of Iraq.

THE FLOODS.
Still it rains and at 143 Henwood Road more trees have fallen, but I
have managed to take my walk between showers and notify people that our
ridge is in danger. So, what about the Smestow Brook and the possibility
that the Vikings parked their ships there and the Battle of Tettenhall of
910AD could have occurred on our doorstep?!

THE SILENCE OF THE WOLVES.
No word today from Sir Trevor Phillips the national leader of the
Commission for Equality and Human Rights which we claim is fatally flawed by
his presence. Nor from the local Labour leader of W’ton City
Council or the Chief Executive or from anyone else responsible that no
organised race relations activity in Wolverhampton has taken place since
Wolverhampton Race Equality Council was closed by Phillips in 2003. The
resignation of the recently appointed chief executive to the new race
equality in Wolverhampton highlights this matter, but still the culprits
fail to explain themselves.

THE BLACKCOUNTRYMAN.
The next issue of thus august periodical will mark the 40th. year of
the existence of a magazine of which I was a co-founder as a representative
of Dudley Technical College all those years ago. It is a key source for the
history of the Black Country and a journal of which we can all be proud.
Over these years I have had two main gripes with successive editors and
their committees. The first is with the title which I raised last night in
my BLOG on feminism. It was not only BlackcountyMEN who created the Black
Country but its women as well, so its name should be changed to something
like BLACKCOUNTRY PEOPLE. This has always been rejected in the past, but at
a time when the Commission for Racial Equality has issued a report stating
that equality between the sexes is generations away, perhaps the male editor
and his present committee might consider that a fitting tribute to its
fortieth birthday celebrations might be a non-sexist change of name.
The other issue of dispute has been the valuable item called SURFING IN
THE BLACK COUNTRY A LIST OF WEB ADDRESSES. I have argued with editors that
my website should be included, as the only one dealing with working class
history and politics in the Black Country. Michael Pearson, the present
editor has in the past refused this, but denying it is because it contains
the word COMMUNIST. I wonder if his attitude is mellowing for the fortieth
birthday, as the latest Summer 2007 issue states, ‘Would you like to see
your web site on this page? Please email the editor with your link and it
will be added’. I shall certainly be emailing you, Michael.
It seems that it is not only the magazine celebrating 40 years of life.
Another organisation is the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal Association.
The Canal Society is preparing a grand 40th birthday party with a grand
celebration on Whitsun Bank Holiday Go to its website www.swcs.org.uk for
further details.
Another notable event is the partial retirement of Stan Hill, a
previous editor of the magazine, from writing his ‘Black Country
Personalities’, which now stand at 75. Yet another is that this issue has
the last in a long series of crosswords, whose compiler can now be revealed
as being Margaret Cox, the mother of yet another ex-editor of the magazine
David Cox.
Finally, advance notice of the next Black Country History Day. It will
take place at the University of Birmingham on Saturday 13 October 2007. Fee
£15 (including lunch and refreshments. The speakers will be Chris Upton,
Paul Collins, Ian Walden and Ned Williams. Further details from Sandra Ilott
on email s.e.ilott@bham.ac.uk or phone 0121 414 3347

THE FLOODS
While we have been quietly congratulating ourselves on living on
high ground and avoiding the floods, disaster has struck from an unimagined
quarter. The pride of the des.res. where we live is the line of high
trees behind us. But water does not only flood those on low ground, it also
undermines the roots of trees and this is what happened next door to us
last night. A very tall tree fell on our neighbour’s garden. She was away on
holiday, but somebody had the savvy to phone the Wolverhampton Nuffield
Private Hospital which owns the Compton Ridge on which the trees stand
and they promptly employed tree surgeons who within a few hours were
chopping the tree into bits. But the gap left by the tree exposes other trees
which now appear in imminent danger of falling. We must call in the Council
and see what other trees are at risk.
Regular readers of this BLOG will know that many people believe
the ridge was the site of the renowned Battle of Tettenhall in 910AD which
played an important part in preventing an early conquest of Britain.
How tempting it is to believe that we live on the site of the battle, that
Saxons poured down the slope to slay the Vikings who fled to the
Smestow Brook to board their ships and escape with their ill gotten gains of
pillaging and raping to the Severn and thence to the coast and back to
Scandinavia. No matter that the Smestow Brook seemed too shallow to
carry ships, perhaps we should look at the Smestow now that the floods are at
their height and see whether they might have carried ships. So I’ve
consulted my friend Peter next door who regularly fishes in the
adjacent canal and asked him his opinion of the Smestow in flood. He says it is
likely to be about five feet deep. This would certainly be deep enough
to float a Viking longboat.
The most authoritative opinion at the moment places the battle at
Wednesfield not Tettenhall, but one can still dream and not until and
unless remain of dead soldiers or equipment are dug up the faint possibility
remains that the battle took place on our doorstep!

FLUSHING OUT PAXMAN AND CO.
We have now questioned those Lords of the Newscasting world on whom
we are almost entirely dependent on bringing us news which is both
truthful and unprejudiced at least 37 times. The main ones are Jeremy Paxman, Andrew
Marr, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney. We have charged them
with deliberately refusing to challenge Tony Blair on his illegal war in
Iraq and that their conduct makes them parties to that war. Also, they are all
members of the ruling class themselves. Paxman, Marr, and Kearney went
to so-called public, meaning private schools and either Oxford or
Cambridge.
Kirsty Wark went to exclusive Scottish schools and the most prestigious
Scottish University. Only Jon Snow did not go to Oxbridge but who needs
that when your father is a bishop!
Not only have they violated the Journalist code but they have
jointly or individually shown an arrogance and contempt for public opinion in
refusing the courtesies of replying to members of the public who
address them.
But this week their bosses have been under fire and both the BBC
and ITV claim they will show zero tolerance to those who breach the Rules
of Trust. Paxman and Co. have violated these views for years and we are
asking OFTEL and the Media Committee of the House of Commons to recommend to
the BBC and ITV that they sack all five of them.

LIGHTS OUT.
That’s enough for one day. A viewing of dear old George Melly and
the English classic Jeeves and Wooster has been a great way to end the day.

DID THE SPEAKER NOBBLE GEORGE?
The first thing that met me on my email today was a long letter from
George Galloway complaining of his sham trial in Parliament. Was he actually
there or was he not?
At least the US Senate gave me an uninterrupted hearing, said the enraged
George as the speaker threw him out of the Commons less than one third
through his speech of defence against the so-called Standards and Privileges
Committee.
It has come to something, continued George, when the leading anti-war
MP could get a fairer hearing in the US senate than in the British House of
Commons. I was thrown out of Parliament this evening (Monday) just when I
had given one example of the double standards that go to the heart of this
matter. We now have the absurdity in which the House of Commons has
convinced itself, or rather pretends to have convinced itself that 10 men
sat in a committee cease to be what they by definition are - highly
political people who together constitute a political tribunal. The public
know it is so, MPs, if they’re being honest know it is true; it is only in
the chamber of the House of Commons that they are not allowed to say so.
George continues with much more, including, ‘I had much, much more to say
about the report and the overarching question of who it is in this Iraq
affair who has brought Parliament into disrepute.
As if that were not enough my next email was from RESPECT some of it
dealing with George. He will be addressing the Commons after 3-30 on Monday
23rd July. He will make an extremely speech robust in defending himself
against the DOUBLE-Standards & Privileges Committee. You can catch this on
the Parliament channel, destined to have its largest audience ever, or
better still come to the House and hear George personally. Did this happen
or not?
The rest of the RESPECT Bulletin is about a local bye-election at
Shadwell, Tower Hamlets where a Respect candidate is standing on 9 August.
Labour are putting up their ex-leader, Michael Keith who was ousted by a
Respect candidate last year. To inflict a second defeat on the Tower Hamlets
Prince of Darkness by our excellent candidate Harun Miah would be a terrific
boost for Respect ahead of the GLA, local and general elections.

FEMINISM
Gender equality is generations away says an Equal Opportunities
Commission report published today. Discrimination is still rife in politics,
business, and public services. Progress in equality is painfully slow, only
20% of MPs are women and a pension gap show women with 40% less income than
males. This report, taken from today’s Guardian adds somewhat ominously that
the EOC is to be combined with the nebulous entity, the Commission for
Equality and Human Rights.
The above report comes at a time when the Guardian celebrates 50 years
of its Women’s Page with a special supplement. It deals with the highlight
of the last 50 years. The 1960s and 1970s when Women’s Lib. was at its
height and the 1979 Equal Pay Act promised so much. The 1980s which began
with Greenham Common, but ended with the shock of Thatcherism. The 1990s
with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and followed by Princess Diana
admitting infidelity following her husband’s. And into the present century
when the great demonstration last November to End Violence against Women and
Reclaim the Night show just how fragile progress toward equality had
become. Now this latest blow of the report that says equality is generations
away.
To me the attitudes of men can be summed up in the publication that
dropped through my door today, the very valuable historic journal of this
area, The BlackcountryMAN. I have argued with the editor and his committee
that women also made the Black Country great and a more suitable title would
be Black Country People. But it falls on deaf ears.
It is clear that women today are in the same plight as black people
whose equality is denied them, so that they are turning back to their
history to find a solution to their problems. In this case it is that white
people are not capable of producing equality because they are not part of
the solution, but part of the problem and that violence might well be
necessary before whites can be made to address their legitimate claims to
equality.
I suggest that analogous action might be applicable to women. They
have a magnificent record in fighting for the vote. Some of the militancy of
the Suffragettes might be needed before women’s legitimate claim to equality
are addressed.

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

DON’T FORGET - YOU FIRST SAW IT ON THE BARNSBY BLOG.
Arsenal will not be sold out to the Yanks. Today’s news tells of Keith
Edelman the largest Arsenal shareholder stating that he and others
shareholders are committed to Arsenal remaining British and have enough
shares between them to see off Stan Kroenke the US baseball man. A statement
by the Arsenal board says that Kroenke has a 12.2% shareholding, we welcome
him as a shareholder but there the story ends. Patriotism will prevail.
Last week in Wolverhampton Sir Jack Hayward confirmed that Wolves will
be taken over by a British conglomerate headed by Steve Morgan, a Liverpool
man who will buy Sir Jack’s share in return for an assured investment in the
club with Sir Jack having a seat on the board with a veto on non-football
matters.
Sir Jack is a renowned patriot whose charitable projects include
bringing back the largest British ship of its time, the Great Britain to its
home port of Bristol. Threats to British industry now comes from two main
directions. The first is the low cost economies of China and India. Unless
the government is prepared to support British industry it will inevitably
fall into foreign hands. The second direction is the so-called ‘free trade’
of the European Union which with its Common Agricultural Policy is in fact
impoverishing Eastern Europe and literally selling off whole countries in
the guise of ‘free competition’. The World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund act in the same way.
But it is only the BLOG which has drawn these matters together to show
that Arsenal and Wolves can save not only our football clubs from foreign
control, but also our basic industries on which we depend including the car
industry and general engineering. The motto is not only Save our Teams, but
also Save our Country.

HURRAY FOR PERCY STALLARD.
I have today received an email informing me that our application for
Percy to be included in the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame will be
considered at the next meeting of the Wolverhampton Sports Advisory Council
sub-group on Friday 10 August 2007. How splendid! The first thing I did was
email Frank Spittle who was the first chair of the Advisory Council and
asked him if he could make some enquiries or perhaps attend the meeting
himself. I further pointed out that that we still had no knowledge of a
previous alleged meeting at which Percy’s name was rejected. When and where
had it taken place? But that is irrelevant tonight. We rejoice that justice
is about to be done and we thank Tina Clark, the Sport and Recreation
Manager of W’ton Council, for dealing with this matter as one of high
importance and we note that Peter Holmes, chair of the Council will advise
us of their decision.

INTERESTING TIMES.
Some emails from eminent people today. One from Richard Holmes the
military historian in reply to my enquiry as to whether Giles MacDonough’s
book After the Third Reich and his claim that 4 million Germans died after
1918 when WW1 ended was authentic or not. Richard states that although he
has not seen the book, he wouldn’t be surprised if this were true as
estimates of deaths are continually being updated as more information
becomes available. Milton Leitenburg’s 2006 Cornell Peace Studies Programme
of Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th. Century puts the figure at 231
million well over Eric Hobsbawm’s figure of 187 million of ‘politically
caused’ deaths in the 20th Century.
I have passed this this information on to Max Hastings, military
historian of the 2nd World War and the Falklands era who I also consulted on
this project to see if he has any comments to make.
In replying to Richard Holmes I have also mentioned a most interesting
article in History Today of August 2007 on Archaeology, T.E. Lawrence and
Guerilla Warfare by Neil Faulkner and Nick Saunders, co-directors of The
Great Arab Revolt Project. This discusses renewed interest in Lawrence’s
contribution to the theory of guerrilla warfare in his classic work, The
Seven Pillars of Wisdom and suggests that some of the more enlightened
American officers in Iraq are carrying a copy of Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of
Wisdom in their knapsacks. A very wise choice as the war criminals, serial
killers and vandals destroying priceless Islamic sites and documents in Iraq
who lead them, who now include Gordon Brown, seem oblivious to the fact that
they now doomed men..

ROBERT TAYLOR ON POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN BURMA.
I have been a friend of Bob since his splendid book Marxism and
Resistance in Burma 1942-1945 was published in 1984. I had some contact with
the resistance during the war when we had a Communist Party Group operating
and the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League under Aung San played an
important part in the liberation of Burma. Echoes of that controversy still
live on among those of us old enough to have been members of the Communist
Party History Group which has now become the Socialist History Society. The
Burma resistance devoured itself and was eventually taken over by a
right-wing Junta which has maintained control ever since.
Robert Taylor is now director of a charity which tries to encourage
training, prevention and understanding of HIV/AIDS among the working people
of Asia, operating so far in Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore.
His recent communication with me told a remarkable story of his visiting
Myanmar and teaching and working with young people. I was astounded that the
Junta allowed him to do this. In reply he says the situation is not as bad
as made out by the western media. He quotes a number of Non-Government
Organisations working inside the country and says this is the fourth time he
has taught university staffs and others. He attaches an article on the
subject which I have yet to download since it consists of 26 pages. It will
have to lie fallow until I have time to read it. In the meantime, others can
help themselves.
Of the Junta’s refusal to allow any one to see the country’s heroine
Aung San Suu Kyi he says that this is part of the problem with the western
press. He ends his email by saying, I also love Arsenal and Arsene Wenger
and HATE Bush and Blair.

BRING BACK SUNDAY.
As I approach my 200th Daily Blog there are people who say why do you
continue with this self imposed task? And some of those include some of my
nearest and dearest. Or, they say why not do a Blog every two days, or why
not have a rest on Sundays. I must confess to being attracted to the idea,
particularly about midnight with the BLOG only half finished. Yes, why not
go back to the old days when the Sabbath was a day of rest. But then I
remembered. Not every one rested. Not printers, for example, who produced
the newspapers for all of us to enjoy. For the common man the supreme
scandal sheet, the News of the World and for us lefties, Reynolds News. The
scandal sheet still appears, flanked these days with inferior competitors,
such as The People and, even worse, rags owned by pornographers who buy
football teams and demand to be considered respectable. Meanwhile Reynolds
has been swallowed up and no one now knows who Reynolds was. So most of our
lefties have moved up to the middle class and buy the Guardian during the
week and the Observer on Sunday which at least has the merit of being the
oldest newspaper in Britain and perhaps the world. Others of us who tend to
resent no longer being working class find that the MORNING STAR is more
nourishing and I for one, tend to download the front page whenever critical
events occur.
Then there is the lure of the television. Yesterday I was seduced by
Bethany Hughes, not the lady herself, you understand, but by her history of
Ancient Greece, and today there is the magnificent film The Titanic, and
Esme tells me now that Tom Jones is on tonight, not the singer, I say
hopefully. No THE TOM JONES which immediately reminded me of Henry
Fielding’s other great English classic, Jonathan Wild. Wild was the most
infamous criminal ever to be born in Wolverhampton, although he had to go to
London to give full scope for his villainies.
No doubt it is sheer obstinacy and vanity that moves me to flog myself
producing the Daily Blog, but it is also the wide range of experiences only
possible when you’ve reached the age of 88. Also the fact that if I didn’t
work at the computer I would quickly die from boredom. Take, for instance
the case of the Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot of the 1890s. This is one of the
things I have forgotten, and yet it is a project to bring the man from the
south, John Harper, who examined evidence of the ‘plot’ from an entirely new
point of view of whether it was ‘fit for purpose’ and found that it wasn’t.
The obvious parallel with today’s so-called plotters is not only clear but
lessons should be drawn, particularly as the sentencing of the alleged
Walsall plotters was contested thought the five and ten year sentences given
the plotters as the work of police agent-provocateurs. Not to mention the
fact that specimens of the bomb which were deposited in the Police museum
have subsequently disappeared and our own Joe Davies , fair organ king of
Wolverhampton and himself a an ex-’bobby with a hobby’ , has been involved
in the search for the missing casts. Not to mention further, the infamous
Garman sisters who were children of the medical officer of health in
Wednesbury and scandalised the country with their ‘advanced’ moral conduct.
Kathleen the eldest daughter was for years the mistress of the American
sculptor Jacob Epstein, married him when his wife died, and inherited from
him the most fabulous art collection that found its way into the Walsall new
art gallery as the Garman-Ryan collection. But there was also a son, Douglas
Garman, who was to know all about police plots because he became the
national education secretary of the Communist Party and as such he was well
known to me.
Thus life’s unbroken strand is laid out and it is now 10pm and I leave
the computer as my son Robert has come for a visit.
It is now 11.30pm and Rob and Cal have left. They have returned from
Greece where they have a house. I asked Rob how his Greek was and he says it
has deteriorated since he had Greek lessons with Sue in Wolverhampton. Sue
was herself Greek, with a political past, and she was husband of Mike
Shilvock, building strike leader, at present tracking down Pete Carter, the
builder’s leader who also stood as Communist candidate in Wolverhampton when
he, and me as his agent, were chucked out of the local Grammar School by
Powell’s thuggish stewards.
Rob was a pupil at Ettingshall Primary School where his mother was a
teacher. I alerted him to the proposed closure of the school and the scandal
of closing one of our few secular primary schools to benefit nearby church
schools.
Other events today have been my contact with Percy Stallard’s daughter
and her husband Robert Bolton, to discuss a letter in the Express and Star
last night by a Mike Price of Liverpool who supported the exclusion of Percy
Stallard the cycling pioneer, from the W’ton Sporting Hall of Fame. Neither
of the Boltons have heard of this man so we continue to submit names of
those who want to support Percy and we will continue to press the W’ton
people responsible to let us know when and by whom the decision was taken to
exclude Percy.
Other events have also occurred today, but we will end by saying that
at least three gigantic conflicts loom for tomorrow. One is the challenge to
the validity of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights with its
undemocratic appointment by the government of is key personnel and the
suitability of Sir Trevor Phillips in particular
to represent ethnic minority opinion in view of his support for the war in
Iraq.
The second conflict will be with Wolverhampton City and education
authorities who have grossly neglected their duty to provide adequate
anti-racist provision, but who must mend their ways and join every section
of Wolverhampton people to end the war in Iraq and prevent our education
system, as well as other public services, being privatised.
The third conflict will be with the racists and bigots that closed
Bilston Community College, the first multicultural college in Britain.

CASH FOR DISHONOURS.
The stench won’t go away. Teflon Tony has got away with it again as
long as he doesn’t open his mouth. But that is not the point. The Labour
Party was created by the trade unions and until the Blairite era was always
openly funded with TU money. But the day that Blair announced that he was
doing away with Clause 4 and leading a non-Socialist party his next aim was
to shackle the trade unions and find himself an alternative source of cash.
Who could be better than the smiling Lord Levy to find big businessmen who
would donate or lend vast sums and allow Blair to virtually destroy the
trade union movement? And it doesn’t matter whether they were Labour or Tory
these days because there’s not one iota of difference between them. So Blair
goes on his way to wreak more devastation in his new role of the Wolf being
put in charge of the Henhouse.
But it can’t go on for ever. The plummeting of Labour support may have
been staunched by the advent of the evangelical Gordon Brown and the
foolishness of David Cameron who insists on supporting the war in Iraq even
though it is now all but over. But sanity must eventually prevail and the
nightmare of New Labour highjacking the Labour Party come to an end.

DON’T BE FOOLED BY BUMBLING BORIS
This is a headline from an article by Ken Livingstone in today’s
MORNING STAR. Now Boris is one of my favourites people, because however much
he is regarded elsewhere as a maverick causing embarrassment to his friends
by unaccountably changing his views overnight, on one thing he has been rock
solid. His opposition to the war in Iraq.
So although I agree with Ken Livingstone that as a possible candidate
in the election for the Mayor of London he appears to have some very
right-wing views and would oppose the measures that have made London a
lonely beacon of Socialist policies including opposition to Blair’s wars,
50% affordable housing and free bus travel for all under 18, I must declare
that although I would not vote for Conservative Party policy in London,
Boris will remain a favourite of mine all the time he is against wars .

NOW HERE’S A FUNNY THING.
The Education Department of the City of Wolverhampton seems to have
invented a very peculiar object. They have named it the Wolverhampton
Quality Standard for Inclusion. Its declared aim is to award it to schools,
‘which can demonstrate they have created an accepting and stimulating
community in which everyone is valued regardless of age, gender, ethnicity,
background and attainment level.’ Noble aims indeed. But the road to hell
is paved with good intentions. So we have enquired of Christine Irving,
Cabinet Member for Schools in Wolverhampton, who sets these worthy aims and
also who validates those who set them. Particularly as Wolverhampton
schools under Ms.Irvine show little signs of implementing race equality
measures absent since the foolish closure of Wolverhampton Race Equality
Council by Sir Trevor Phillips some three years ago. We will keep you
informed of what reply we receive, if any.

THE COMMISSION FOR EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
Somewhat ahead of the new Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton which
has done little in the past eighteen months to promote equality of
opportunity we have some very welcome hard facts from the new organisation
that Sir Trevor Phillips has been appointed to lead.
Firstly it has a Mission Statement. A Society built on fairness and
respect. People confident in all aspects of their Diversity. We are
obviously in the world of good intentions tonight.
But Sir Trevor welcomes us all to the new, interim website of the CEHR
and states that a permanent site will be established when the CEHR
officially opens for business in October 2007.We are also told that the new
Commission will be a Non-Departmental Public Body. Also that 15 key
Commissioners have been appointed who are: Trevor Phillips, chair; Baroness
Margaret Prossor of Battersea. deputy chair, and other Councillors - Kay
Allen, Baroness Jane Campbell, Kay Carberry, Jeannie Drake, the Baroness
Greengross, Professor Kay Hampton, Francesca Kug, Sir Bert Massie, Ziauddin
Sardar, Ben Summerskill, Dr.Neil Wooding, Morag Alexander and Dr.Nicola
Brewer, the Chief Executive Officer. For good measure a biography is given
of all the Commissioners.
Obviously considerable attention has been paid to gender,
representation, and ethnicity. Perhaps the membership is a bit elitist, but
it would seem that everything is set fair for a bright and happy future busy
eradicating racism from Britain.
But…and it is a big but, is this a real organisation or a phantom one
without substance?
Questions present themselves. For instance, What is a Non-Departmental
body and is there a body to which the Non-Departmental Body is responsible?
Secondly, who was responsible for choosing and appointing the Commissioners?
Then the political questions. What is Sir Trevor Phillips’ view of the war
in Iraq. Has he changed his mind since being appointed Chair of the
Commission for Racial Equality, when he considered it a subject ‘not within
his remit’. And what are the views of the Councillors, are they for or
against the war in Iraq. Anyone serving on a public body should disclose
their political opinions, if asked. Or perhaps it should be mandatory to do
so. And they certainly cannot hide support for the war in Iraq as being a
non-political matter which they manage to do in local elections. It appears
that there is no democracy in the new CEHR. Everyone appointed and none
elected. It is precisely this that we wish to avoid on our local Race
Equality Unit. Our WREC was always elected and controlled by the two main
ethnic minority groups in the City of Indians and Afro-Carribs in its
existence of 35 years which made it the oldest such body in Britain. The
ultimate buck is that of the government. It is overwhelmingly a white
institution. Is it possible for a white body to eliminate racism or is it,
as considered by an increasing number of Black and Asian organisations not
the solution of the problem, but its source?