The Barnsby Blog

MOSTLY GOOD TIDINGS
I actually spoke today to my old friend and comrade Pete Carter the
Tipton born building trades leader and Communist who has returned to his
native country to live on a boat on a canal. He has received the message
from the woman who is doing a book and a BBC programme on those who sold The
Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and there is no better example than Pete
who used to fill his car boot with copies and flog them to men on the
building sites which he visited as an official of the Building trades union
of which he was an official. He tells me today that he has forgotten most of
the book and will have to re-read it before talking to the BBC lady. The
same thing applies to me, and fortunately we both have copies.
It is funny how different people view the same matter. When I heard
about Pete living on a boat I though of it as a fixed mooring, but Esme, my
wife thought of its as a mobile craft which would be capable of bringing
Pete to the canal parallel to the Smestow Brook here in Henwood Rd. This
immediately sent my mind racing to thoughts of Pete duplicating the voyages
of the Vikings who fought he Battle of Tettenhall in Henwood Rd. (much more
plausible than it being in Wednesfield) and perhaps being able to pick up a
piece of the priceless loot left by the Vikings. Anyway, we will have to
see how mobile Pete’s barge is when we see him next week.

WAR AND PEACE
A very welcome visitor today has been Bill Baker, Wolverhampton secretary of
the Burma Star Association Bill, a very sprightly 86 year old left me a
sheaf of information regarding the Burma Star Association which is now the
organ also of the Chindits. As veterans die off keeping alive the memory of
their achievements is increasing difficult hence the importance of the
unveiling of the 14th Army memorial last week at the Lich Gates, St.Peter’s
Church, Wolverhampton, which I was unfortunately unable to attend because of
age and disability. But it has brought both national and local contacts
which Bill Baker has. He tells me that the local Burma Star Association
meets on the last Friday of each month from 12 to about 1-30pm at the United
Services Club, Humber Street, and if I contact him before 11am on the day he
will pick me up. This is an invitation that I shall be only too pleased to
accept and means that I am now in contact also with the national British
Legion who seek support for the legendary Poppy Appeal on November 11th. Its
address is Royal British Legion, Halifax Rd. Bowerhill, Melksham, Wiltshire
SN12 6YG and they need both volunteers and donations.
Bill Baker and others will know that I have always been a man of peace
not enamoured by organisations controlled by top brass and ruling class
politicians. But times are changing and even commanders-in-chief these days
can express their opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I am
happy to work with most of the dwindling band of us who are now recognised
as saving Britain from conquest by Hitler’s fascists.
Quite coincidently I have had an email from a hostile critic whose
criticisms could only have come from his reading my RED FRONT a soldiers’
paper that I published about February 1942 advocating a Second Front in
Europe. Instead, as everyone know, we took the long way round of invading
first the middle east and then Sicily and Italy. His criticism was as
follows. ‘Perhaps you could explain why you wished our badly outnumbered and
woefully under prepared army to return to mainland Europe in 1942 where they
would have faced inevitable defeat….The Soviet demands were the height of
hypocrisy given that a large western front had been destroyed at a time when
the Soviet Union was allied with Hitler’. Red Front clearly points out the
errors in that argument and can be read by all within a few days when I hope
it will be on the Web. But for those who do not use a computer I will
paraphrase the immediately relevant parts. Spring will bring the war to a
new and more difficult phase as it will bring a renewed onslaught on the
Soviet Union in the hope of gaining a final victory. Do we have a strategy
capable of taking advantage of Hitler’s weakened position after nine months
of disastrous warfare against the Soviet Union. For Hitler this is the only
year that matters; the year when every man and machine from Germany and the
Occupied countries will be thrown into the battle. If his plans fail this
spring and summer then he is finished. Why therefore are our plans for a
second front in 1943 and 1944? Of what use are all our grandiose plans if
Hitler is on possession of Caucasian oil, Ukrainian wheat and the mighty
industrial areas of Moscow and Leningrad. Does anyone seriously think that
the Allies could challenge German and Japan under such circumstances. Over
to you Mr.Critic
It will be known that it was not possible for me to be charged with
treason and shot for publishing a soldier’s paper as happened in the First
World War so the authorities took the coward’s way out, detached me from my
unit and sent me abroad where I served four years in Burma and India. Many
years later when I appealed under the Disclosure of Information Acts you
will not be surprised to learn I was told there was no connection between my
publishing a soldier’s paper and my being sent abroad!

FOOTBALL MADNESS.
The ultimate in insanity has been reached by the actions of the Chelsea
Russian owner willing to pay £100 millions for the Spanish footballer
Ronaldinho against the desires of their manager apparently who will now have
had two unwanted players foisted upon him.
At the moment it is Arsenal and Wolves who continue to reject foreign
ownership, and Sir Jack Hayward the former Wolves owner who is influential
enough to see that our basic industries are not sold off to foreigners. At a
time when millions of people are prepared to leave the United Kingdom to
settle abroad it is time for patriotism to prevail.

A COMPLIMENT
I have dealt with a critic today, so perhaps you will excuse me if I
mention Bob Piper a Sandwell Labour Councillor who writes that somebody had
sent him details of the wonderful Barnsby Blog which is a splendid resource,
particularly information about socialist history in the Black Country. He
goes on to write about a ‘cracking piece’ I wrote about my MP Rob Marris.
Modesty forbids that I quote any more, but a bond has been struck between me
and Bob when he says I’m not New Labour, Nor Old Labour, But just plain
Labour. I like it Bob, particularly his uncompromising opposition to the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

LEFT UNTIL TOMORROW.
Attempts to contact our new Race Equality Unit in Wolverhampton
Joe Davies’ rehearsal of the day he met Princess Diane, played his
organ for her and told her who Lady Wulfruna was pays off as he appears at
the Express and Star commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the death of
the princess
Further attacks on those both local and national who flout democracy by
not replying to correspondence.
And much else.

BACK TO WORK - SOME OF US.
I had a remarkably rapid reaction to my piece yesterday on Barrie
Roberts, the legal beaver, folksong performer and writer, anti-racist
activist, novelist and much else. On my breakfast table was a book by
Barrie given to my wife, Esme, by Ivor Pearce, himself a folk singer
entitled, ‘ Sherlock Holmes and the Railway Maniac’. Inside was a dedication
to Ivor which read, ‘If you read this very slowly it’ll last you for the
next 50 Years! Happy jubilee, Barrie Roberts 2-3-96′. This book had been
in Esme’s possession for a number of years and she hadn’t even opened until
yesterday when she recognised the name and put in on my breakfast table. So
now I have one of Barrie’s and only require a folk-song record of to
complete my collection of Barrie Roberts memorabilia. I have asked both
Ivor and Ivan Geffen if they can oblige.
Another victory has been personal contact with Pete Carter, the Tipton
born building worker who has now returned to his old haunts in his old age
and is now living on a canal boat. I had been asked by a BBC person to
provide me with contact with Pete, because she is researching a book and
recording a programme on the activities of people who has sold the building
trade classic The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists of which there is no more
dedicated a person than Pete who used to fill the boot of his car with
copies of the book and sell them on the building sites he visited as an
official of the Builders’ trade union. A meeting a trois is being arranged
at my house with Pete and Mike Shilvock, his deputy during the Builders
strike in the ’70s?, to reminisce and no doubt plot further working class
activity in the future.
Yet another advance has been my contact with the leader of the
Wolverhampton Burma Star Association following my inability to attend the
ceremony of opening a memorial to the 14th Army at Lich Gates, St.Peter’s
Church Wolverhampton. Bill Baker will bring me material about the Burma Star
Association and I will gladly join.
The above information came via. my MP, Rob Marris, with whom I have
had differences in the past largely because he supported and continues to
support Blair’s (and now Brown’s) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at least
he doesn’t seem to have been offered or accepted any of the numerous and
meaningless ministerial posts, and he is personally quite a nice chap. So I
have decided to bury the hatchet and offer him the olive branch of my
friendship.
A less edifying matter has been the refusal of the directors of the
Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame to notify either me, or Percy Stallard’s
family of their decision concerning the admission of Percy Stallard,
Wolverhampton’s greatest of cycling innovators and the man who made
Wolverhampton the cycling capital of the world. I was promised that the
chair of the committee would inform me immediately after the meeting of the
decision, but now five days have passed and no one has had the common
decency to inform us. If I don’t hear tomorrow I’ll start the sort of
almighty row that Percy specialised in creating in order to get the
bureaucrats off his back.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE BLOG
I have been labouring under the delusion that Martin George, our
Webmaster was somewhere in sunny climes enjoying a well-earned holiday. But
what I find is that he has spent the time updating the BLOG. Particularly
pleasing to me is that my interview with my mother Eleanor, but always known
as Clara, could be listened to. This is an important statement about life
from 1900 through to the end of the 1914-18 war.
Particularly satisfactory to me is a series of articles of people who
have meant much in my life. The first of whom is Stan Henderson whose
pamphlet for the Socialist History Society told of his experiences as a
Japanese prisoner of war building the infamous railway in Thailand. Stan was
the only Communist who held a May Day meeting in a Japanese war camp and it
was only his splendid physique which saw him through until liberation.
Another man I greatly admired was Bill Cutler who eventually wrote The
Soldier’s Tale for Ex-Services CND. Bill was a sergeant-major who we treated
with some suspicion when a group of us militants in a military hospital in
what is now Bangladesh but was at the time in Bengal and had been a leading
centre of terrorism which ended with a large number joining the Communist
Party of India. Bill we were suspicious of because he was a sergeant-major
and warrant officers were unknown to have progressive views. However Bill
was a good militant who settled in the west country after the war where
there was no Communist Party to join, so Bill became a CND activist. There
are other militants who I am fond of but you will have to download them for
yourselves.
Then there is a series of biographies of Communists from the Rowley
Regis/Stourbridge neglected part of Communist histiography including Charlie
Johnson’s own story of himself and his mother, one of the last hand nail
makers in the Black Country who lived to be 103 and joined the Communist
Party when she was 100 and read the Daily Worker.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND OSAMA BIN LADEN.
Passing over all other splendid features I want to end with
developments from our item last night on Christopher Hitchens. We have
contacted Bruce Lawrence the US editor of the one book that every
Multiculturalist should posses, ‘Messages to the World, the Statements of
Osama bin Laden’.
Christopher Hitchens is a Conservative anti-Iraq war person, but I think
David Lawrence will agree with me that the Neo-cons search for ObL is not
only hopeless but pointless because if he were caught and murdered by the
Americans he would become the No.1. Muslim martyr. He is, however, the most
influential of Muslim leaders and he is therefore most useful to both his
enemies as well as his friends alive. We await comments from both Bruce
Lawrence and Christopher Hitches.

HOMAGE TO BARRIE ROBERTS.
I was saddened to hear of the death of Barrie Roberts given in an
obituary in the Guardian Monday August 27th by Ivan Giffen. Both were my
friends. As I said in my Blog No. 231 (mislabelled 331) I first met Barrie
on the 90th anniversary of the so-called Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot. The
Bomb Plot was entwined with the story of the Gorgeous Gaman Girls who
shocked respectable society in the 1920s and 30s with their scandalous
behaviour resulting in Kathleen, the oldest daughter,
becoming the mistress for many years of the world famous sculptor, Jacob
Epstein and later his wife and widow, leaving his fabulous collection of
pictures and sculpture to Walsall New Art Gallery specially built to house
these treasures. Plot and treasure were entwined with the fact that the
Garmans also had a son, Douglas, who became a well known Communist who I
knew, and further complicated by the fact that the Plot was a set-up job
involving Auguste Coulon an agent-provocateur of Inspector Melville, of the
Special Branch and that the working class were deeply involved in protesting
at the use of police spies, something which echoes today in the continued
use of police spies. All this was recorded in the book by Cressida Connolly,
herself a bit of a celebrity, in her book, ‘The Rare and the Beautiful, the
Lives of the Garmans’.
So when I was involved in the plans of the director of the Walsall New
Art Gallery to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Bomb Plot, I was the
only modern scholar who had researched the Plot. (See my ‘Socialism in
Birmingham and the Black Country 1850-1939′.) Thus when I first met Barrie
Roberts as fellow members of the committee set up to arrange the 90th
anniversary event I was to become full aware of his forensic talents, but
blissfully unaware of the talent that made him a celebrity in the folk song
world. So on to the obituary by Ivan Geffen, who I already knew as a
spectacularly successful Walsall lawyer in cases of defending blacks (and
whites) and well versed in the tactics of the police fabricating evidence,
as in the case of the Birmingham Six in which he was involved.
Geffen writes as follows. When he was first introduced to Barrie in
1967 he was known throughout the West Midlands as a folk singer. He
established a club, the Song Smiths who performed each week at the Fitters
Arms in Walsall. He had an enormous vocal repertory and played a wide range
of string and keyboard instruments.
What brought us together was a shared concern for civil liberties and
notably the treatment of Gypsies and other travellers. Although born of
Welsh stock Barrie was a member of the Gypsy Council. Their civil liberties
were denied them by local councillors, police, press and much of the local
population, so when arrested and charged it was not easy to obtain justice
from magistrates. As Barrie’s forensic skills became increasingly clear I
invited him to join my firm’s criminal department. He was a fast and
prodigious reader with a phenomenal memory. When we were working on the
Birmingham Six Appeal we were daily receiving vast amounts of statements
from the police that had to be digested instantly so that counsel in London
could use them.
In 1969 when we set up the Walsall committee for Human Rights, Barrie
was a member. Out of it came the West Midlands Traveller’s School. Operating
from a converted bus it was the first attempt to bring literacy to traveller
children and later to their parents. It was partly funded from collections
at the Songsmiths and Barrie was one of the first teachers.
He had considerable skills as a draughtsman, particularly as a
cartoonist, but abandoned art training to become an administrative officer
at the Atomic Research Establishment at Aldermaston. He was posted to the
test site at Maralinga in Australia. Recently he became involved in the
campaign to secure redress for those who suffered from radiation.
After several years in solicitor’s offices he became advisor to the
mainly Asian Walsall community of taxi-drivers.
Nor was that the end of his talents. He wrote very successful paperbacks
on real crime history. His most successful novels were pastiches of the
Sherlock Holmes stories, although I prefer the novels built around a
solicitor’s practice in a provincial town that could with little difficulty
be mistaken for Walsall!

PERCY STALLARD - AGAIN
The case for including Percy Stallard in the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall
of Fame was held on Friday August 24th and presumably decided on Yet neither
me nor Percy’s family have been informed of the result. This is an
inexcusable breach of a promise made by Tina Clark, the Sports and
Recreation Manager of W’ton City Council. I’ve asked Tina to expedite this
matter.

ROB MARRIS MP AND THE WOLVERHAMPTON BURMA STAR ASSOCIATION.
Rob Marris has kindly provided me with the address of the Wolverhampton
Burma Star Association as being Bill Baker of 6 Marlborough Gardens
Wolverhampton WV6 0LU. I explained in my BLOG No220 of Thursday 16th August
of my regret at not being able to attend the ceremony of a memorial to Burma
veterans at the Lich Gates, St.Peter’s Church Wolverhampton. I explained
that I was essentially a man of peace and until recently would not have
considered joining a military organisation dominated by top brass military
figures. especially as I had researched the only rank and file dominated
National Union of Ex-servicemen (NUX) of the First World War who were
eventually bought off by the many millions of pounds of the Canteen Funds
and became the British Legion from then on and ever since controlled by the
ruling class of Britain, civilian and military.
However, circumstances change and in these days so few of us Burma
veterans are still about that rank and file members now do most of the work
and I am very willing to join the Burma Star Association. So thank you Rob
Marris.
This kindness follows a request from a petulant Marris that I never
correspond with him again. This I gave a raspberry to because he happens to
be my MP and I can write to him as often as I like. The fact that he
supported from the beginning and continues to this day to support Blair’s
illegal and unwinnable war in Iraq thus jeopardising his chances of
retaining his seat at the next general election has been further cause for
hostility between us.
But at my advanced age of 88 years, I now have a number of Tory friends,
so there is not much point in not being friends with Rob. So I offer him an
olive branch. He knows my website and can use it or not as he likes. But he
once wrote telling me what a decent chap he thought I was. He is an
exemplary constituency and quite a likeable bloke. So shall we bury the
hatchet and I’ll send him a copy of my soldier’s paper Red Front, calling
for a second front in 1942 both to relieve the suffering Russians and to
stop Hitler conquering the wheatlands and oil of the Soviet Union?

ROUTING OUT THE RAPSCALLIONS.
Regular watchers of this Blog will know that we are tender-hearted
enough to believe that almost all people who pursue wrong policies at least
believe in what they are doing. The Archbishop of Canterbury put it best
when talking of my friend Osama bin Laden, ‘even terrorists have their
consciences’ he said. For this reason we have adopted a scale of abuse with
only two degrees of venom. The first is ‘Silly Billies’ after Denis Healey’s
classic phrase, and Rapscallion meaning rascal, scamp or rogue according to
the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
It is by the latter appellation that I address Jeremy Paxman, Andrew
Marr, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney whose crimes are that they
failed to challenge Tony Blair on his war in Iraq and thus facilitated his
ability to support Bush’s war in 2003, and also became accessories to the
war. Not only that, but in their upper class arrogance and ultimate
stupidity they have on 42 occasions failed to respond to my charges against
them.
In addition Mark Thompson and Lew Grade, respective heads of BBC and
ITV have also failed to respond to my requests that they discipline their
exalted employees. By not replying to me they not only show a lack of common
decency, but also fail to note that replying to correspondence is a
condition for the continuance of democracy in Britain, and both BBC and ITV
recognise that by making it statutory for its employees to record and
eventually respond to all correspondence.
Where these Rapscallions go from here I do not know. But I am in a
position to challenge them every day, if I wish. And this I am likely to do
until I get a response.

BARRIE ROBERTS AND IVAN GEFFEN.
A sad thing today to read an obituary in the Guardian of Barrie Roberts
by Ivan Geffen, both of them good friends of mine.
I first meet Barrie Roberts around the 90th. Anniversary of the
so-called Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot of 1892 The anniversary event of
exhibition, lectures etc. were arranged by the very able curator of the new
Walsall New Art Gallery, specially built to house the treasures, of a
fabulous collection of pictures and sculptures donated by Kathleen Garman
and Sally Ryan of Jacob Epstein’s world famed collection.
Barrie Roberts was a solicitor’s clerk in Walsall and I was roped in
because I was investigating the Walsall Bomb Plot and since the curator had
ample funds I found myself for the first time in my life with plenty of
money to investigate why the documents in the case of the Bomb Plot were not
released after 50 years as was the usual term. In fact my researches yielded
little, because there seem to be no reason why they were not released at the
time and any chance of finding Home Office or Special Branch scandals did
not arise.
The Bomb Plot and the fabulous Garman sisters, daughters of the
Wednesbury Medical Officer of Health were inescapably entwined. The sisters
shocked respectable society in the 1920s and 30s by their scandalous
behaviour. Lorna. the youngest and most beautiful , was the lover of the
young poet Laurie Lee and the painter Lucien Freud, while the eldest,
Kathleen was for many years mistress of Epstein the American and when his
wife died she became his wife and ultimately his widow who deposited these
riches in Walsall while many among the London art establishment thought they
should have been housed in London. All this is told in a book by Cressida
Connolly, ‘The Rare and the Beautiful, the Lives of the Garmans’.
But the two elements of Walsall plot and treasure was further
complicated by the fact that the Garmans had seven daughters, but also two
sons, one of whom was Douglas Garman who became a Communist and national
education officer of the CPGB who I knew quite well.
Yet a further complications is the role of the Labour movement reacting
to the 10 and 5 year sentences of the so-called Plotters who were convinced
that it was a put-up job and that the man who set the plot going was an
agent-provocateur employed by the Special Branch.
So a few lines are necessary to outline the so-called Plot. Branches
of the Socialist League were degenerating into tiny sects advocating
everything from robbery to obtain funds to the use of bombs. Walsall branch
succumbed to the Anarchist trend and Frederick Charles, a well known
anarchist and later Auguste Coulon the suspected agent-provocateur followed.
Sketches of a bomb followed and Coulon is said to have set the Plot in
motion. Joseph Deakin, was the main Walsall activist, him being a railwayman
with a ‘privilege ticket’ who was thus able to travel frequently to London
where he mixed with the Continental anarchists. In December 1891 John
Battolla, an Italian anarchist came to Walsall to enquire how the work was
going. On his arrival he was followed by the Chief Constable of Walsall and
Inspector Melville of the Special Branch. On 6 January 1892 Deakin went to
London with a parcel. He was arrested and the parcel opened when they found
not the bomb they expected, but a bottle of chloroform. The next day
Melville came to Walsall and others were arrested. The prisoners remained in
the Walsall cells for a fortnight, during which time they complained of
ill-treatment. But Deakin then made a strange confession. He admitted to
making the bomb but believed that it was for use in Russia. The central
issue became Melville’s relations with Coulon. He admitted knowing Coulon
but refused to say whether he employed him.
There followed a high profile trial led by the Attorney-General himself
where the men were charged under the 1883 Explosives Act with ‘feloniously,
unlawfully and wickedly conspiring to cause by an explosive substance an
explosion in the UK of a nature likely to endanger life’. Charles, Cailes
and Battolla were sentenced to 10 years penal servitude and Deakin to five
years. Coulon was not even arrested or tried.
As I have said, there were constant protests by the trade unions and
Labour movement for the release of the men and against the use of spies in
the labour movement. An issue which has obvious connections with spies being
used today.
There is a strange post script to this story. Mr.John D.Harper
published in Historical Metallurgy vol 39 No.1 2005 an account of the bombs
themselves in a study from the unique point of view of whether the bombs
were ‘fit for purpose’ and his conclusions were that they were not. John is
descended from two Black Country iron foundry families from whom he
inherited the two bomb casings referred to in his study.
Once again, ‘fit for purpose’ is some thing that has been used with
regard to bombs used by allegedly modern plotters and been found wanting.
And again, spies in the labour movement has again been raised. Also the
whereabouts of the original bomb casings used in the trial are in question.
These were given to a local Police Museum, but have disappeared and Joe
Davies, our local retired police officer has been involved in the search for
these historic artefacts.

LEFT TILL TOMORROW.
Again we will chase non-repliers to our correspondence. I am
particularly disappointed that we were not given the report on the decision
of the officials of the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame whether to vote
Percy Stallard, our great cycling innovator into the Hall.
Questions on the structure of and workings of our new Race Equality
Unit, will also be an urgent matter for attention.
The search for Pete Carter our local Builders’ Trade Union leader
takes on a new urgency as a request is received from a BBC researcher for
trade unionists with experiences of selling the Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists, the classic book of the Building trade.
Unresolved matters regarding the number of layers of agencies and
persons charged with the task of ‘regenerating’ Wolverhampton will be
raised, as will the question of the state of education in our City.
And there will be much else, but that must be left till tomorrow.

SOCIALISM COMES TO LONDON.
The sensation of the Proms season this year, indeed the sensation of
all Proms seasons, according to Stephen Pritchard in the OBSERVER today,
has been the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela as they brought the
stamping, roaring audience to its feet last week with encore after encore.
This fantastic orchestra is the flag ship of an education system which
gives 250,000 young people the chance to play an instrument, getting them
away from the drugs, guns and crime in the barrios. Not only were they a
political sensation but also a sartorial sensation wearing the clothes of
young people throughout the world, but over it the brightly coloured
Venezuelan flag type jacket of the orchestra which they threw to the
audience sending out a proud message to those who caught them, ‘I was there
and it will be a night I will never forget’
These young players under their extraordinarily charismatic conductor,
Gustavo Gudamel, himself a product of El sistema, steamed through
Shostakovich’s tenth symphony with a Latin intensity that brought new
colours to its dark corners, racing through the ‘Stalin’ scherzo in a
frightening, dazzling frenzy. This was followed by Bernstein’s West Side
Story, a perfect show case for their irrepressible sense of fun.
But it was their choreographed encores that turned the evening from
concert to carnival as Mexican wave followed Mexican wave and they danced,
sang and revelled in a storm of applause, donned their jackets and played on
until they hurled themselves into the ecstatic audience like triumphant
footballers.
What a night at a time when in Britain disillusioned youth in street
gangs were killing each other. Music that is too often dismissed as
difficult and elitist must be recognised for its ability to transform
damaged lives. A start has been made in Scotland, but it needs to be
extended throughout Britain. Instead we see cuts in spending and
depressingly little time devoted to music making in most of our schools.

STOP THE WAR COALITION.
Stop the War has issued a statement to Gordon Brown asking for a change
of foreign policy. Prior to this Stop the War is organising a Demonstration
in central London on the day Parliament returns after its summer recess. In
the meantime the Statement will be advertised in a full page of the
Guardian. Anyone wishing to have their names on the advert are asked to send
£20 (£15 for concessions) to Stop the War Coalition 27 Brittania St. London
WC1X 9JP. Phone 0207278 6694 offices@stopwar.org.uk
The Statement reads, ‘We urge you to use your October statement to
signal a break from George Bush’s foreign policy and bring all the British
troops out of Iraq immediately, regardless of US plans. It is clear the
presence of British troops in Iraq is a pointless waste of life. The
majority of Iraqis want them to go. Most soldiers have been withdrawn to
bases outside Basra where they play no active role but are coming under fire
regularly and taking heavy casualties. It is time to go’.
Stop the War activity is also a feature of that most venerable of
Labour journals, the New Statesman. In this week’s issue, Andrew Stephen
charts the dying days of this hugely unsuccessful administration. Is the
president imploding? His aides are jumping ship, his inner circle is torn
apart by feuds and his orders are being ignored. Bush now has 17 months in
the White House, but is he now a rudderless leader.
John Pilger writes a regular article, telling this week of how calls
for a boycott of Israel have gone global. Darcus Howe is prompted to write
at the time of Hurricane Dean of a previous hurricane, Gilbert, which
destroyed or damaged almost four fifths of Jamaica’s houses. Human rights.
Some Guantanamo prisoners have been cleared for release but US defence
officials still insist they are dangerous terrorists, and the unquestioning
US media supports this. Much, much more of culture, letters and book reviews

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS OPPOSES THE WAR IN IRAQ.
This dark brooding Conservative Godless man has an article in the
Observer today opposing the war in Iraq. What makes him even more detestable
to me is his hatred of Michael Moore, who has done more that any other man
in the US to oppose Bush and the plans of his Neo-Cons. Hitchen’s theme is
that Bush’s crass attempt to invoke the Vietnam war as a comparison with
his war in Iraq is the most ludicrous misreading of history. So far, so
good, but Hitchens touches on ground that others have so far feared to
tread. For instance he says that the Iraqi Communist Party and the powerful
Iraqi trade union movement especially the oil trade unions still form part
of the tenuous civil society that is defending itself against the parties of
God. Indeed this is true and the Iraqi Communist Party went out on a limb to
oppose US neo-cons from the inside, and are now in a position of great
influence in fighting for a united Iraq.
But it is when he write of ‘a nihilistic Islamist death-squad
campaign’, that Hitchens’ well know hostility to Osama bin Laden is
expressed. And yet when the American people turned George Bush from being
the greatest tyrant on earth, to a blabbering buffoon when they voted to
remove control of Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats it
naturally followed that those who had been the most oppressed by Bush should
then have the power that Bush possessed. The most important of these was
Osama bin Laden.
ObL was a terrorist, but so have been many other regimes in their time,
notably the English Commonwealth men who cut off the head of Charles 1st and
the founding fathers of America. Obl had nothing to do with 9/11, he says so
in the book ‘Messages to the World’ edited by Bruce Lawrence. Nor is he, as
many ignorant people think, head of Al Qaeda which is. in fact more an idea
than an organisation. It depends on the UMMA which is the belief that every
Muslim has a duty to support every other Muslim, and this is the doctrine
motivating ObL.
Neo-cons spend their time illegally scouring the mountains of Pakistan
looking for bin Ladan. It is most unlikely that they will find him, he has
too many friends. But what would they do if they could find him? Murder him
as they did Saddam Hussein and make an even greater martyr of him? No. their
dogs of war should be called off. ObL is of best use to both his friends
and his enemies, alive. And it is inconceivable that the modern
multicultural world can be built without Osama bin Laden’s wise counsel.

REPW
Good news. The Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton is up and
running. Its address is REPW, West Entrance 2nd Floor Coniston House, Chapel
Ash Wolverhampton WV3 0XE. Its chief executive is Parvinder Chana on 01902
572290. His email address is parv.chana@repw.org.uk
One of its first activities is to engage in Black History month which
starts in November. It asks that those wishing to take part in the event
should contact Wolverhampton Community Radio contact person Alvin Vernon on
07831 505303 or email keepitreal@wcrfm.com A meeting will be held on
Tuesday 11th November at 11am and anyone wishing to take part is asked to
contact Delva Campbell on 01902 554081 or email her at
delva.campbell@wolverhampton.gov.uk
I shall contact both Parvinder and Delva (an old friend of mine) as
soon as the Bank Holiday week end is over.

ERRATA, THE DEAN OF CANTERBURY AND HIS ‘SOCIALIST SIXTH OF THE WORLD’.
As I related in Blog No.227 of Thursday last I am emotionally involved
with the Dean of Canterbury and his book because I was stationed in the
great public school attached to the Deanery. There I published the soldiers’
newspaper the Second Front over about five issues which is perhaps the first
forces newspaper ever published since the Commonwealth days of the Levellers
in the 17th. century. Also that I participated in the historic church parade
which took place on the first Sunday after the German attack on the Soviet
Union in June 1941, when from being a pariah the previous week, the Dean was
a hero. And I was asked by high ranking military officers how long the Red
Army was likely to be able to hold out and I was able to ensure them that
Hitler’s attack was a turning point in world history and from that moment
victory was assured.
I then back tracked to the struggle to maintain peace after Chamberlain,
Halifax and his Appeasers attempted to form an alliance with Hitler with the
ultimate aim of Germany and Britain attacking the Soviet Union and
destroying Communism. It was during this period that the Dean of Canterbury
wrote his famous book, ‘The Socialist Sixth of the World’ which went through
no less than 20 impressions between its first publication in December 1939
and November 1944. This book continued to be published up to the 1960s, was
translated into almost every language in the world, sold millions of copies
and has every right to be regarded as one of the most influential books ever
written.
In writing my Blog last Thursday, a portion of the Blog was lost,
including any mention of the Dean’s book, so that the passage became
meaningless. In the ordinary way I could have asked my Webmaster, Martin
George, to have put it right. But he is on holiday and so it must remain
unaltered until he comes back.
I repeat, the question of the 2nd.World War has affected my life ever
since and I am entitled to be emotional about it.

KEN LIVINGSTONE APOLOGISES FOR THE SLAVE TRADE.
I am not the only one being sentimental, Ken found himself shedding a
tear or two on Thursday when he initiated an annual day of remembrance of
the Slave Trade and its Abolition and apologised on behalf of the people of
London for the role London played in initiating slavery. Present at that
historic meeting at the City Hall were distinguished speakers such as Linton
Kwesi Johnson, Ben Okri, Beverley Knight and Jenette Arnold. But none more
distinguished than the Rev. Jesse Jackson the famed Civil Rights activist
partner of Martin Luther King Jnr. in struggles in Alabama to extend voting
rights to blacks. In 1984 he was a Democratic Party delegate for the US
presidency and polled 3.5million votes. At the 1998 elections he became the
Democratic Party front-runner, until Dukakis took over. His activities ever
since have widened opportunities for blacks and he is in England this month
to advocate that the black vote, if used in a concerted way is, is
sufficient to determine the result of the next general election.
Can Gordon Brown be persuaded to apologise for slavery on behalf of
Britain? He show little sign of doing so at present.

ROASTING THOSE WHO WILL NOT REPLY.
Strange scenes among those who fail to respond to our correspondence in
the Guardian today.
First the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has a long
article bewailing the loss of trust of the public and again putting on a
hair shirt and vowing that he will put things right or go down with his
ship. We have had to remind him that on a number of occasions he has failed
to reply to our charges that employees of his Paxman, Marr, Kirsty Wark and
Martha Kearney have abused their position as celebrated newscasters on whom
we depend for true and objective news by failing to challenge Blair on the
war in Iraq and therefore became accessories to that fateful conflict.
Even more remarkable was the fact that in the same paper Jeremy Paxman
and Andrew Marr decided to present themselves as the champion of those who
opposed the war in Iraq by claiming that the BBC scandals are stoking the
crisis of distrust. We have therefore had to remind Paxman, Marr, Kirsty
Wark , Jon Snow (at ITV) and Martha Kearney that they were in no small way
responsible for the war by not challenging Blair before he started his war.
That leaves two other non-respondents who we shall tackle tomorrow. The
first is his highness Sir Trevor Phillips who we have repeatedly challenged
as not fit for purpose as chief executive of the new Commission for
Equality and Human Rights, (already derided by both ethnic minorities and
women as a Blairite concoctions to deprive them of equal rights) because of
his failure to make clear his attitude to the war in Iraq.
This leaves only poor young David Cameron, for whom I have some
sympathy for his heroic efforts to transform the untransformable, namely the
Tory Party, but who once was willing to talk to me but now fails to do so,
as he continues to support the war. He thus stands like the boy on the
burning deck from whence almost all others, (including George Bush himself),
seem to have fled.

FRIENDS FROM THE INTERNET
It is always nice to know that you have friends ‘out there’. A number
of examples have occurred recently. I mentioned only the other day an email
from Ilyan (AC Thomas). He was in touch with Glaslyn Morgan who seems to
have awarded himself the Order of Lenin and who might have been the last
Communist councillor in the UK. I wait with baited breath the outcome of
Glaslyn’s adventures. But it seems that Ilyan was also at the 1954 World
Youth Festival at Budapest and he, like me had been contacted by Gyula Virag
who had found a list in the Hungarian archives of all those who attended the
Festival, and sent a questionnaire to all participants asking pointed
questions among them one on one’s attitude to the Hungarian Uprising in
1956. I said that I was most surprised at the uprising, because in 1954
everyone seemed very impressed with the Socialist regime and I thought the
uprising was due in part to those of the old fascist regime in Hungary which
had been the last to abandon Hitler in 1945 and of which Cardinal Mindzenty
was a typical example. I would now like to know how Ilyan answered that
question. But the point was that Ilyan had met Virag but had lost his email
address and asked me if I could provide it, which I have.
But the bonus was that Gyula who had not communicated with me since
the 50th anniversary of the Uprising and who I thought had abandoned me
because I had suggested that the present government in Hungary was showing
pre-war fascist tendencies. But Gyula said that this was not the case, he
had ceased emailing me because he did not think matters being discussed were
relevant and he will be pleased to supply me with information on the current
political situation in Hungary. This is a plus because the logic of my BLOG
is that it should increasingly become internationalised.
Another welcome stranger was Keith Taylor who took me up on the
question of the Battle of Tettenhall/Wednesfield. He plumped for Wednesfield
quoting the William White Gazetteer of 1851 as his authority. I wrote back
saying that this was an assertion and not evidence such as Dr.David Horowitz
is presumably offering for the battle being in Wednesfield. However Henwood
Road in Tettenhall offers the best physical possibilities of being the site
with its steep slope down which the Saxons pursued the Vikings who fled down
to the Smestow Brook and thence with their ill-gotten gains the Severn and
back to Scandinavia. This contrasts with the flat plain of Wednesfield where
it is not possible to conceive of two vast armies clashing in such an
important battle. However the only real test will be excavations at both
sites to see if bodies or military equipment can be found.
I emailed back to Keith asking whether he had any particular interest
in the Wednesfield site. He wrote back to say that he used to live in
Wednesfield but had no partisan interest in where the battle was fought. He
says he used to work at Bilston CFE. Is that Bilston Community College, I
wonder? Also that we have a mutual friend in Lindsay Hutchinson, the
Birmingham book-shop owner who specialises in the works of Enver Hoxha the
Albanian Stalinist. He is at present doing research into urban policy in
Birmingham in the 1980s. Here is all the material for a very fruitful
co-operation with the BLOG. Welcome aboard Keith.

FUTURE EVENTS.
Wolverhampton A level results have now been announced. They will then
disappear from view as the Department for Education and Skills provides its
unhelpful and misleading statistics on both A levels and GCSEs. At a time
when there is both demands that exams be abolished and also accusations of
dumbing down two things seem to stand out. One is the abiding excellence of
Wolverhampton Girls’ High School with its 100% A level results and a very
welcome improvement at such Comprehensive Schools as Parkfield and
Deansfield, so that stupid threats to close schools or amalgamate them with
Academies should be more difficult to sustain.
Other things that have come my way in the past few days have been two
splendid books. The first is a local book Tales of Tumblefold by Joseph
Whittaker. He was born and brought up in the worst slums of Wolverhampton
which he calls Tumble Fold. He escaped the slums eventually and became a
journalist and writer. He was also an active member of the Wolverhampton
Labour Party and Councillor John Rowley has written an article on him in the
Dictionary of Labour Biography which he has promised to let me have. A full
review will follow in the next few days.
The other book called the Lullaby of Birdland is an autobiography of
George Shearing the blind piano virtuoso. George was born and brought up in
Battersea, London, as I was. I first met him when I went with a pianist
friend to Battersea Grammar School where George was teaching part-time.
George told me when I met him at a concert some years ago that he had no
memory of such an incident, but his book deals fully with his early years in
Battersea, how he became a pianist and eventually moved to the USA where he
became world famous. The book combines my love of jazz with my life in
Battersea which I share with several other historians of the Labour
movement. George has since suffered strokes or heart attacks which make it
impossible for him to visit Britain and I am always anxious to learn the
latest news of his health

THE DEAN OF CANTERBURY AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
There is an interesting article in the Guardian today by Lynne Olson a
former White House correspondent of the Baltimore Sun telling George Bush
that he does recall a British prime minister, but it was not Winston
Churchill, but Neville Chamberlain the Appeaser who, like Bush, ignoring
Congressional procedures, ignored British Parliamentary procedures even to
the point of having Winston Churchill’s phone tapped in his attempts to win
the support of Hitler with the ultimate aim of attacking the Soviet Union.
I am so emotionally involved with the event that shaped my life, the
2nd.World War, including the soldiers’ paper that I edited, a copy of the
front page of which will appear on my BLOG shortly, that one tends to
underestimate the immensity of that effort in 1939 to prevent war, to 1944
it went through no less that 20 impressions and when ones adds the many
impressions since 1944 when, it was translated into most important languages
in the world and, until recent years it has never been out of print, it is
clear that this was one of the most influential books ever written.
To the first edition he wrote what he called An Important Foreword
written on November 2nd 1939. In it he wrote of his regret that the work was
not published six months earlier. Had that been the case I might have hoped
that it would have played some part, however small, in helping our own
country to understand Russia. With Russian friendship, consummated in a
pact for collective security, we should now be spared the terrible tragedy
that confronts us. It was, however, not to be. Greater forces were
fashioning our destiny. And yet the need for Anglo-Soviet co-operation is
not less, but far greater today. I know only too well the deep-rooted
hostility and prejudice that exists among certain of our people towards
Russia. But I ask them to lay these feelings aside while they examine what
this book has to say. Apart from the epilogue there is little I should want
to add or subtract. But because of what has happened in the last two months
I would invite readers to turn to the Epilogue first and familiarise
themselves with the brief account of the Soviet’s struggle for peace during
the twenty two years of its existence. If this book should serve to prevent
one day, or even a fraction of a day of unnecessary bloodshed and slaughter
it will more that have fulfilled any hopes I may have entertained concerning
it.
And I hope that in these days when the magnitude of the of the services
rendered to mankind eventually involving most of the people of the world,
are celebrated that the Dean of Canterbury be accorded his rightful place.

MONTY JOHNSTONE.
The obituary I enquired for last night has duly appeared today. And by
that greatest of historians and activists, Eric Hobsbawm. He emphasises even
more than I did, the eccentricities of Monty. After graduating in 1952 he
became editor of the Young Communist League newspaper Challenge until his
opposition to the Russian invasion of Hungary. He remained in the Party
after 1956 and his anti-Stalinism pioneered Eurocommunism. However he was
hostile to he revisionism of Marxism Today, pessimistic about Gorbachev’s
reforms in the Soviet Union, opposed the dissolution of the British
Communist Party, became a member of the Board editing the Collected Works of
Marx and Engel’s, made his peace with the CPGB and kept a political home in
the Socialist History Society. In the late sixties he gave up a successful
career at Greenwich University to become a freelance journalist and after
the break down of his marriage in the late 60s and the break-up of his
marriage in the early 1970s he became in effect a single parent. When his
children grew up and left he sold the family home and lived increasingly in
unadvertised and uncomplaining poverty in a south London flat. He had no car
and turned up to meetings on a bicycle. Like a goodly number of us including
Eric Hobsbawm and myself Monty remained in the Communist Party until the
Party left us by being dissolved and becoming Democratic Left.

GLOBALISATION, DEMOCRACY AND TERRORISM.
And talking of Eric Hobsbawm here is another great work by the master
reviewed by Willie Thompson in the August Newsletter of the Socialist
History Society. It has been said that some great historians are the
marathon runners of the intellect by producing outstanding work at an
advanced age. Examples given are Leopold Ranke in the 19th century and
Fernand Braudel in the 20th. But even by those standards this latest work of
Hobsbawm, publish in the year of his 90th birthday shows no signs of
flagging powers and is an incisive as ever. The volume of 10 chapters were
all written between 2001 and 2006. The British Empire of the past, unlike
Bush and his Neo-Cons at least understood that while it was the top power
it could never be the only one and so however ruthless and barbarous its
actions were it had to exercise a degree of international restraint.
How barbarous the British empire could be is exemplified by its
barbarity in Kenya discussed by Stan Newness the doyen of historians on
Colonialism surveying the atrocities committed against the Mau Mau. in the
aforementioned Socialist History Society Bulletin.
Willie Thompson singles out Hobsbawm’s chapter six on the Prospects of
Democracy which he says is the most brilliant he has yet read read and asks
that SHS members ensure that the book is purchased by the schools, Colleges.
Universities and Community Groups where they have influence. I shall
certainly follow this advice. The book is published by Little, Brown and
costs £17-99.

WISDOM FROM PRIVATE EYE
We end the day with words of wisdom from no less a source than the
satiric Private Eye. Private Eye is not always our favourite journal, it
having to share responsibility for the closure of Bilston Community College
the first multicultural College in Britain and ignoring that College’s entry
into the first and third entries into the Paul Foot prize for investigative
journalism sponsored by Private Eye and the Guardian, both of whom had a
hand in closing and keeping closed Bilston Community College.
However Private Eye remains a powerful investigative source and a
short notice about Wolverhampton in its latest fortnightly issue will give
certain important people in the City who rarely reply to this BLOG food for
thought. It says that jobless people in Wolverhampton will breathe sighs of
relief when they learn that a Mr.Graham Mackenzie is riding to their relief
and has been welcomed by Labour leader Roger Lawrence who is ‘delighted’ at
MacKenzie’s appointment as chairman of a new quango the Wolverhampton
Development Company which he feels sure will bring job opportunities and
regeneration to the City. However MacKenzie was formerly chief executive of
ASW the steel maker that collapsed in 2002 leaving 1,300 workers unemployed
and without a pension.
Over to you, Roger with an early opportunity of improving on a record
of not being too willing to reply to those who criticise the City Council
and its officers.

PETE CARTER IS FOUND.
This will be good news to all Pete’s comrades and friends who feared
that he might no longer be with us in this world. But fortunately this
proves to have been unfounded. For those local people less familiar with
Communist militants we will say that Pete was born down Tipton way and has
come back to live in the Black Country in his later years. He was the leader
of the important Builders’ Strike in the 1970s and as an official of UCATT
he was famed for filling the boot of his car with the building trades
classic ‘Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ and selling them at the building
sites he visited.
Pete also stood as a Communist candidate in a general election against
Enoch Powell and my most abiding memory is of the two of us (I was Pete’s
election agent) being thrown out of a public meeting at Wolverhampton
Grammar School by Powell’s BNP like thuggish stewards.

MONTY JOHNSTONE 1929- 2007.
A sad event is the comparatively early death of Monty Johnstone. He was
a Communist of equal stature with Pete Carter and of the same generation. I
knew Monty. He was an unorthodox figure in some ways, but made the study of
the newly released archives of the of the Communist International and the
Soviet Communist Party his speciality.
Does anyone know of an obituary to Monty? If it was in the Guardian,
I missed it.

CLASS WORDS - 100 YEARS OF STRUGGLE.
I sent off for this publication by the Worcester Trades Union Council
more as an act of solidarity than expectation. But how wrong can you be?
This splendid collection of Worcester and district poetry through to
general labour material is unputdownable. The ironic ‘The Funny Rigs of Good
and the Tender-Hearted Masters in the Happy Town of Kidderminster’ is
followed by the Farm Workers song of the Warwickshire Union of Agricultural
Workers 1872
We won’t be idle we won’t stand still
We’re willing to work, to plough and till:
But if we don’t get a rise, we’ll strike we will
For all have joined the Union.
Then there is ‘Lift up the People’s Banner’ from the Socialist Sunday
School Song Book by Joseph Whittaker, a Wolverhampton man born in the worst
of slums in Wolverhampton.
Then two more, one called ‘The Knights of Labour’ a US song and another
US organisation, the Wobblies, The International Workers of the World called
‘Tie them Up’.
Tie ‘em up! Tie ‘em up. That’s he way to win
Don’t notify the bosses till hostilities begin
Don’t furnish chance for gunmen, scabs and all their like
What You need is One Big Union and One Big Strike
The Wobblies influenced two Walsall brothers born in the Workhouse who
eventually fought in Spain, Don and Dusty (who died there) Bennett. The
Knights of Labour struck deep roots in the Stourbridge district of the Black
Country which didn’t happen in many parts of Britain.
The rest of the book is devoted to general Labour poetry, Chartist
material from the Northern Star, William Morris’s ‘Song of the Workers’, a
full version of both the Red Flag and the Internationale. This is a really
splendid collection and I would like to end with something that particularly
appeals to me;
Union Man
You cannot be a union man
No matter how you try
Unless you think in terms of ‘We’
And not in terms of ‘I’
I haven’t got a copy of the Worcester TUC address at the moment, but
look it up in a directory and send a cheque for £3. You’ll never get better
value.

ILYAN AND THE ORDER OF LENIN
One of my very welcome occasional correspondents is an A.C.Thomas, who
calls himself Ilyan. One of his specialities is working class songs and he
once offered me a CD with 150 such songs, but they never did materialise.
How about it, Ilyan?
He emails me today to say that he has lost the email address of Gyula
Virag and can I find it for him. Gyula is the young PhD student in Budapest
who came across, in the Hungarian archives, records of all those who
attended the 1954 World Youth Festival in Budapest. Gyula prepared a
questionnaire asking participants what their view of Hungary and the Youth
Festival, including a key question on the Budapest Uprising of 1956. I
replied that having taken part in the Youth Festival and seen the support
for Socialism among all the people of Hungary that I was most upset at the
Uprising and thought it had been, in part at least, organised by the
Hungarian fascists who ruled Hungary between the two world wars and were the
last to desert Hitler in 1945.I had a considerable correspondence with Gyula
until 2006 which was the 50th.Anniversary of the Uprising which was widely
celebrated both in Hungary and among the Hungarian community in
Wolverhampton, when I again raised the question of whether Hungary is a
democratic country, or whether it is ruled by those who follow the fascist
pre-war line. Strange to say, I have heard absolutely nothing from Gyula
since the anniversary which was so contrary to his previous willingness to
discuss post-1956 politics.
Ilyan was in fact also a participant of the 1954 Youth Festival, but he
had the pleasure, which I did not have, of meeting Gyula in London and
having a good talk with him. So Gyula’s email address I shall certainly be
able to let him have.
But Ilyan then goes on to mention another Welshman with whose
activities I am not familiar. This is Glaslyn Morgan who Ilyan says he has
recently visited who has just moved into a more caring environment. He goes
on, ‘ I have been told that Glaslyn was awarded the Order of Lenin, but I
did not get confirmation from Glaslyn himself. He might have been the last
Communist councillor in the UK’. Such cryptic comments promise a possible
mine of information so I will have to ask Ilyan to explain what it is all
about.

HAVE A NICE BANK HOLIDAY.
Much as been left undone. A whole sheaf of newsletters from various
national historical organisations wait my attention. And also my pursuit of
the governors of the BBC and ITV and of course Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr,
Kirsty Wark, Jon Snow and Martha Kearney. But just as everything stops for
tea in England, the pursuit of justice also stops and many main summer
holidays are still to be taken by the good and the not so good. But at least
the Express and Star continues over the holiday. It told me yesterday that
one more level of bureaucracy has been added to the groaning board which at
present controls us, and we shall have to ask how their promises of
regeneration and prosperity differ from the large number already promised.
But the BLOG will not be taking a vacation.

DEGREES OF ANTI-RACISM.
I increasingly find it necessary to lay down my own set of rules for
Anti-Racism. For instance when I call the Learning and Skills Council
institutionally racist for conniving with the Further Education Funding
Council at the closure of Bilston Community College the first multicultural
college in Britain, I am prepared to concede that it is a case of
Institutional Racism i.e. unintended racism, but when the Learning and
Skills Council continues repeatedly to ignore the charges against it - and
that is the present position - then the situation must be deemed one of
conscious racism.
Thus I have a category of what I call Pretend Anti-Racists, and into
that category falls Sir Trevor Phillips OBE. Then there is another category
of so-called Anti-Racists who I term Half-Way House anti-racists. These are
those who reply to correspondence and declare that they will let you have an
answer, but never do. This category currently includes the chief executives
of the BBC and ITV who have acknowledged our complaints that newscasters
Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark and Martha Kierney failed
to challenge Blair on his war on Iraq and thus facilitated Blair’s path to
war and rendered themselves accessories to the war. This category also
applies to local people where the rules lay down that complaints must be
recorded, acknowledge and an answer given, but these rules are rarely
observed.

FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF FOOTBALL CLUBS
The new season is now under way. Manchester City sits astride the top
of the Premiership propelled their by the money of the disgraced Thai
president and the willingness to spend his money by Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Poor old Martin Joll at Spurs seems to have served his purpose and will be
dumped in favour of a Spaniard, if rumours are true. Manchester United in
the bottom half of the Premiership. The national press bows to the whim of
those fans who believe that success can only be achieved by limitless sums
of foreign money being paid for players.
Yet more responsible fans running football supporters and football
trust funds have not lost sight of the consequences of selling their clubs
to the foreign devil. Take the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust who
never for a moment have ceased to oppose the Glazers who have spent £921
millions to buy United. But it was money they never had. It was borrowed
money. Borrowed at 15-20% interest not from reputable bankers but the new
fangled hedge funds. United made about £48million in operating profit last
year. Glazer’s business plan says he must make £107millions next year
(2008). Such money cannot even be met be meet by raising ticket prices,
economising in transfer fees and the recently increased AIG sponsorship. And
it all depends on the winning of silverware in an increasingly competitive
market of foreign owned clubs all with their own problems. But if the
Glazers fail the hedge funds do not care, they will take over Manchester
United. But what will happen if there is a slump and football clubs go the
same way as other businesses?
Many other football clubs are trying to protect themselves with
Supporters’ Trusts. Rochdale, Swindon, Hendon, Northampton, Bristol City and
Chester City among others and even Aston Villa, already taken over by an
American Randy Lerner are fighting back by attempting to ensure that Villa
Trust representatives are given places on the club’s Board.
But it is the other key club resisting foreign ownership, Arsenal, where
the fight to remain British is being waged by both the club and its
supporters. A statement of March 2007 by the Arsenal Supporters Trust
states, ‘The AST believe that the principle objective of new investment in
our Club should be its continued development as a sporting institution on
and off the field. Investment should be made to take forward the development
of the club, not for the generation of profit’. The celebrated supporters
club, the oldest in the Britain and the world, The Gooners, goes even
farther and gives prominent space to the view that David Dein, who created
the most important crisis in Arsenal’s history by resigning from the board
was certainly not acting in the interests of Arsenal when he supports Stan
Kroenke’s bid for the club which even if he invested 70 to 80 millions in
the club would want a return on his money and would take money out of the
club in the long run and Yankee Doodle Deiny would have as little patriotism
as Kroenke.
To all this should be added Sir Jack Hayward’s insistence that the
Wolves he owned and loved should be bought by an English consortium and not
a foreign one. Sir Jack’s patriotism is the real thing and he is capable of
playing a large part not only in seeing that our football clubs stay
British, but also that our basic industries remain in British hands.

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FOOTBALL CLUB IN THE WORLD?
Can it be Arsenal Ladies’ Club with hundreds of trophies to its credit
and nine members in the current national team who are off to China soon to
play in the Women’s version of the World Cup. The nine Arsenal players boast
a staggering 382 caps between them, and it is, of course, a multicultural
team Not even the great Arsenal male team of the 1930s with its seven
players (I think it was) in the national team could beat that. True or not,
we wish the national team and Arsenal Ladies the very best of fortune.

APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY.
We are indebted to the VOICE, the premier black journal in Britain for
this report. Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London has set the ball rolling by
apologising on behalf of London people for the slavery that transported 12
million black people from Africa to the Americas. He supports the national
campaign for the Prime Minister to apologise for the slave trade and hopes
there will be an annual Remembrance Day. This coincides with the UNESCO led
International Day for the Remembrance of the Abolition of the Slave Trade of
1807. It also coincides with the 216th anniversary of the start of the
anti-slavery revolution in Haiti which led to that country becoming the
world’s first black-ruled republic.
The Mayor of London’s meeting on 23 August in the City Hall Chamber
will have music, poetry and distinguished guest speakers, none more
celebrated than Rev.Jesse L Jackson Snr. the well-known US anti-Slavery
leader and prophet.