The Barnsby Blog

     What ever solutions emerge Burma faces a very long road from feudalism to a modern society.

BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE’S BOOKS.
From the time when Dennis Turner MP and one time chair of Bilston Community College began to listen to the siren racist voices of the civil servants at the DfES who eventually closed this first multicultural college in Britain, Turner made the following comment. ‘Perhaps we did spend too much time writing books’. In this he was wrong and his remarks will come back to haunt him as it will to the racists and bigots at the Learning and Skills Council and successive Ministers of Education.
In the four books that Bilston College Publications and Education Now published, Bilston Community College pioneered not only the PRACTICE of multicultural education but also the THEORY. These four books were: Further Education and Democracy written by the principal Keith Wymer; Community Need and Further Education written by Frank Reeves (the vice-principal) and Colleagues; The Modernity of Further Education written by Frank Reeves alone; and Further Education as Economic Regeneration the Starting Point again by Frank Reeves, but also his colleagues (something quite unknown at that time) and friends which included non-teaching personnel and students at the College (this is completely unknown to this day). BCC became too successful and the fear among those who closed the college was that the radical Bilston example would be followed by others and the system of providing FE only to those who had educational qualifications would be ended at vast expense it was alleged. The wiping out of racism at BCC was also not approved of by those who still hanker for old time imperialism.
However these questions have been raised anew today by a College that wishes to use BCC material on their courses, but are advised that they should have clearance from those who hold the copyright of the material and they have asked me if I can help. So I have been putting feelers out. Is it Wulfrun College the smaller and reactionary college that was allowed to take over the much larger BCC? That has now become Wolverhampton City College. Or is the copywright with Keith Wymer? the ex principal of the College?. Or the Board of Governors of BCC who were peremptorily dismissed when the College was closed? Or with those who wrote the books? Wherever it lies with it will raise the question of the criminality of closing BCC and will help lead to the time when Community Education is restored in Wolverhampton. It may even raise the question of how many other colleges are using BCC material without having bothered to question the copyright.

A WILY WHEEZE THAT WENT AWRY RETURNS.
The problems of Lady Bracknell’s family arose from the fact of one lost handbag. The problems of this Blog were not only the reverse of the good lady’s but also came in twos. Hence a title Seeing Double Twice. I went on to say, ‘Let me Explain’. At that point I lost everything on my computer on this subject and I suppose it could happen again, but let’s take a chance and go on.
It began with a Guardian article concerning Mark Kermode. My mind immediately went in to gear and I thought I remembered that Kermode had been involved in the publishing of he works of Edward Upward, the 103 year old surviving member of the poets and critics of the 1930s circle which included Isherwood, Auden and Spender. An email to Janet Upward, his daughter- in- law, brought the immediate reply that Frank Kermode had indeed been involved in the last major publication of Upwards’ ‘The Night Walk and other Stories which appeared in the year of his 100th birthday. But that was Frank Kermode. Was there a Mark Kermode? A quick consultation with Google informed me that there was and that he was a writer and critic with a fan club who had been absolutely opposed to television, but has very recently done an about turn and now praised it. So there was my first Seeing Double. Is Mark related to Frank? Has he any views on Upward which he might express today as Edward is now more concerned with his earlier views, wrote off the Labour Party decades ago and is a life time Communist. All this remains to be decided and promises to be very interesting.
My second case of Seeing Double concerned two local political authors whose names were ‘J’ . One it seems was Joseph and the other James. Both born in the 1870s. In this I was involved with Councillor John Rowley who is the expert on the Wolverhampton Labour Movement. It began with my reading of the book by Joseph Whittaker called ‘Tales of Tumblefold’. This a fictionalised autobiogrphy of a man born in the worst slum of Wolverhampton who raised himself by his own bootstraps to become a journalist and political activist and a writer of minor national importance. But before expressing my views I wanted to have Councillor Rowley’s. However it now turns out that his man was James, Scottish born a very religious man who was also a Rechabite and much else which John in his usual efficient way and turned into a history of Wolverhampton Labour Party up to 1940, the year when James was killed in a car accident.
So I have asked John if he has any material relating to Joseph and I await with interest his views.

MORE TROUBLE WITH THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
Not content with taking over Regis Comprehensive School and thus denying the parents of Wolverhampton Wightwick a Secular Secondary School to send their children. Not content with having a teacher who got up to naughty tricks and had to be removed, the religionists and the Diocese of Lichfield have succumbed to Mammon by agreeing to have a Mobile Phone Mast on their premises despite the protest of parents and general agreement that there are health hazards to such masts. Their intention is to have extra money that other schools will not have and draw pupils from all over the City and beyond instead of keeping to their allotted catchment area. This has brought vigorous campaign against it. This long running battle moved up a gear on Wednesday when 60 parents staged a protest at Tettenhall’s Newman centre opposing Orange plans to replace and extending the mast at Regis Rd.
Wolverhampton City Planning Committee are due to discuss the issue on October 2nd. Parents are removing their children from the two schools mainly affected, Kings and Christ Church Primary School.
The problem is not only masts, but religious control of many of our schools. This is now being challlenged by teachers’ organisations both locally and nationally.

THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE.
All reality has now disappeared from the Conference. The main talking point is the snap general election in November. MPs and Trade Unionists alike are being seduced by such concessions as the singing of the Red Flag to believing that if they haul together for a fourth General Election victory it will be easier then to combat Blairism. They deceive themselves. A fourth term for for the virtual policies of New Labour will see those who oppose him trussed up like chickens for the slaughter. Principles must never be abandoned. The fight against Brown’s reactionary policies must start NOW and continue to November and beyond.

THE ORANGE REVOLUTION
As someone who spent four war years in Burma and its Indian hinterland I am most interested in what is happening in Burma. The protest of the Buddhist monks is quite unparallel. The moving of the leader of the democracy movement Aung San Suu Kyi from the villa where she has been under house arrest for many years to the notorious Insein prison is indeed a sinister indication that the military junta has no intention of seeing itself removed. What to do? Well the very last thing is to have George W.Bush ranting about punitive sanctions and the British interfering. If the National League for Democracy with its four days of protest in Rangoon, Mandalay and other centres cannot topple the regime, then it would seem to be a matter a matter for the Asian countries, notably China and India in conjunction with the United Nations to decide what action can be taken.
I have consulted my friend Bob Taylor, author of, ‘Marxism and Resistance in Burma 1942-1945′. He has actually worked in Burma recently which he insists on calling by its native name of Myanmar and is now in other parts of SE Asia working on projects concerned with HIV and venereal disease. He is contemptuous of the western media and what they report, but admits that he doesn’t know where the current unrest will end.
I shall continue to consult my friend and follow his advice

THE BLACKCOUNTRYMAN AND WORKING CLASS HISTORIANS FROM THE MIDDLE AGES.
Opposed as I am to its sexist title the journal has come up with an absolutely vital contribution of working class historians dating back to the middle ages. I tend to regard myself as among the first wave of working class historians following on the example of Christopher Hill, AL Morton, EP Thompson, DGH Cole and other middle class historians who pioneered the idea that history was made by working people and I became, as a result a working class historian.
But I must move aside to make room for medieval people who inspired by middle class critics such as Chaucer, the Lollards and also 17th century pioneers who trod this path long before me. Stephen Van-Hagen writes of these in the latest issue of the magazine (Autumn 2007). He has unearthed a vast work by James Woodhouse (1735-1820) a Rowley Regis born poet entitled, ‘The Life and Lucubration’s of Crispinus Scriblerus’. Woodhouse is associated locally with Shenstone and the Leasowes. His work discussed at length in ‘Eighteen Century Working Class Poets’ edited by Bridget Keegan.
I am not in a position to discuss the merits of Woodhouse’s work. Nor need I because Van Hagen will publish Part 2 of his article in the next edition of the Blackcountryman. Moreover, he has also given his email address which is svanhagen-at-hotmail.co.uk or contact him at Dept.of English and History, Edge Hill University, St.Helens Rd. Ormskirk, Lancs. L39 4QP. I shall certainly contact him and I hope other Labour historians will do so.

FRANK SPITTLE - THE FIRST WOLVES MASCOT.
I was most surprised to learn from the Express & Star of yesterday (Tuesday 22nd Sep.) that Frank Spittle was the first Wolves mascot back in 1932 and that he together with his brother John and sister Jose were all three chosen to be the first mascots of the club. All three are shown on that very special day, Frank holding a placard with ‘The Major’ written on it, a reference to Wolves world renowned manager of the time. Major Buckley. He still remembers being led round the pitch by a Wolves player (presumably the captain) in 1932 when he was 9 and there’s a picture of that too.
Frank grew up a Wolves fanatic holding a season ticket for 35 years in the Waterloo Road Stand, but had to give it us as his work in his Gun Shop in Bushbury made it necessary for him to work week-ends after 1971 and he eventually had to give it up.
Frank was honoured by the club last Tuesday (another picture) showing him holding a ball and meeting his modern counterparts, Josh Skyte, Alex Lawrence (both 9) and Daniel Plant (aged12). He had a chat with Steve Morgan on Saturday who said that he couldn’t believe that he was back.
In later years he has been responsible for the International Shooting facilities at Aldersley Leisure Village which have been renamed The Frank Spittle Rifle Ranges
I shall add that in recent years Frank has been a member and chairman of the Wolverhampton Sports Advisory Council and has played an important role in seeing that Percy Stallard our cycling innovator and rebel who made Wolverhampton the world centre of road cycle racing is admitted to the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame.
A very special citizen of Wolverhampton is Frank.

THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE.
It continues to be a concern for all children as long as they are not Iraqi or Afghan. But today shifts to looking at the vast power Gordon Brown wields, particularly in his power to decide the date of the next election. There continues to be lots of organised opposition to Brown’s refusal to end the war in Iraq, but you wouldn’t think so from a survey of local TV and newspapers.

DEFENDING ONE OF OUR GREATEST INSTITUTIONS - THE BBC
Today we have had to send another email to the Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson reminding him that his failure to discipline his employees Paxman, Marr, Kristy Work and Martha Kearney for their failure to challenge Blair on his war in Iraq and these same employees refusal for the 40th (?) to reply to my charges is not only a breach of the rules of trust which he has endorsed, but deliberately obstructs the workings of our Parliamentary democracy rendering us a dictatorship no better than any other dictatorship in the world. I have requested an immediate reply.

DEFENDING THE GREATEST INSTITUTION IN BRITAIN - OUR INDEPENDENCE.
Yesterday Arsenal football club stood alone (except for Sir Jack Hayward of Wolves) in holding the torch of independence for our football teams, but because of the craven sell-out of most other Premiership teams to foreign speculators, in at least two cases accused of criminal offences, Arsenal stand also as de facto champions of our national independence.
There is an irony in this. Arsenal have been owned ever since the 1930s by the merchant bankers Hill-Wood. But they have always treated this ownership as a trust and it was they who made the Club the most important in Britain. As the world appears to be sinking into a 1930s type Wall Street slump those clubs owned by foreign speculators interested only in profit might well face melt down, bankruptcy and disappearance of their clubs.
This is why it is so important that under their new wizard Arsene Wenger who has signed a new contract, Wenger and the board are fighting vigorously for their joint vision of a British club owned by its shareholders for its supporters able to compete with other clubs in the world without having to spend billions of pounds. As Wenger has said on more than one occasion, if the directors gave him £100 million what would he do with it. His answer -he would give it back! The Arsenal model is to produce great players not to pay monopoly money for them. It is to be hoped for the sake of all genuine football supporters that Arsenal continue to prosper until other clubs are able to see the folly of their present policies and reclaim their clubs both for the independence of their clubs and the independence of Britain.

DEFENDING ONE OF THE GREATEST INSTITUTIONS IN BRITAIN - BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE.
Bilston Community College (BCC) was the first FE College in Britain committed to admitting all who wanted further education at a time of considerable unemployment in the town due to the closure of its last steelworks. It also became the first multicultural college in Britain, recruiting large numbers of black students (virtually unknown elsewhere) but also a talented multicultural staff (absolutely unknown elsewhere). The success of the college was due to the fact that its courses were organised around the temples, mosques, churches and community organisations as well as in the college. BCC also linked up with similar organisations not only in Britain, but also abroad, notably in the US and the USSR. BCC also created the first non-racist College in Britain where EM people could be assured of a base where racism was eliminated and both children and parents could attend functions without harassment and racism.
Such actions were abhorrent to racists and bigots of the day. This multiculturism might well spread and it had to be nipped in the bud before it did. So an unholy alliance of the other College of FE in the town, the local university, the Further Education Funding Council, the Minister of Education and the beaurcratic civil servants throughout the national government set about closing the College. The College which had a debt that would have been perfectly manageable if incorporated into the college finances was requested to be paid that year. This forced the college into the hands of the FEFC which claimed that BCC had financial irregularities which required that it be taken over by the much smaller Wulfrun College. The appeal of the principal of BCC against this judgement was never heard and BCC disappeared for what the racists who closed it, hoped would be forever.
But the fact that BCC practice has become common throughout FE in Britain and the fact that complaints against Bilston were put to the West Midlands Police Fraud Squad and after delays of nearly two years BCC was cleared of any financial irregularities; the fact that no member of BCC staff has ever been charged with any offence; that appeals through the Secrecy of Information act has cleared BCC, but want to charge us for releasing their documents indicate BCC should be restored forthwith.
This week’s Guardian Education buzzes with ‘new’ proposals, particularly A National Teachers’ Conference on Raising the Academic Attainment of Black Boys at an event that will take place on Tuesday 13 November in Solihull. This emphasises the need again for urgent action to be taken on racism in Britain and locally the need to activate our new race equality unit, Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton and the Equal Opportunities Committee at Wolverhampton University.

BETRAYING OUR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.
The Labour Party Conference grinds on to its second day with no sign of Gordon Brown relinquishing his control over the party despite the familiar New Labour platitudes of consultation and decisions taken by local people. Indeed lorries encircling the conference area have been seen with a poster of Brown in Churchillian mode bearing the slogan, ‘Never have so few decided so much for so many’.
But it could be that sense is beginning to dawn on some government ministers. For instance the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband gave a ’stark warning’ today that all is not well with our foreign policy. He said that he went to Pakistan recently where he met young, educated, articulate people in their 20s and thirties who said that millions of Muslims were convinced that we seek not to empower them, but to dominate them. Quite right. So when is our policy in Iraq going to change? Certainly not until the all-powerful one decides it will.

TWO ‘MAD MEN’.
I have two men who voluntarily or accidentally antagonise the whole world and then turn to me as the only person who will have anything to do with them. Both are to all intents and purposes, ‘mad men’ and to this term they answer.
One is Mushtaq Shafi who has involuntarily antagonised the world, and the other is Bill Kirkpatrick who has voluntarily upset every one.
Mushtaq has Tourettes Syndrome, an incurable condition which involves spasms of violence which lands him in trouble and he is currently in a police hostel in Birmingham. Unless he is looked after by a caring society he will end his life in jail.
Kirkpatrick is an 87 year old who has antagonised his family and the world all his life. His wife has recently died and his daughter, previously antagonised, has stepped into the breech and is now searching for sheltered accommodation for him which he doesn’t want to go into, but it seems to be the only alternative.
These two, who have never met, have formed a sort of bond and when one gets into trouble, he tends to ask me what the other is doing. It was just such an occasion with Mushtaq in trouble that I was about to phone Kirkpatrick, but he beat me to it and phoned me. The sad news was the death of his partner from cancer. The optimistic point was that he feels fancy free, has most of his faculties and wants to make the best of them. Both of them are intelligent people Kirkpatrick has travelled the world, much of it by navigating boats of considerable size. But at one point the renewal his car licence was refused. Since then he has ignored the law and driven illegally. But he feels he was unfairly treated and wants his licence restored. To do that he must seek the approval of his doctor. But his doctor refuses to discuss this matter claiming there must have been good reason for the original decision. He now has a madcap scheme to leave England for good, sell his house and buy another in Spain which would leave him with some additional cash to supplement his income. This however involves a secret midnight journey so that his doctor cannot prevent it and a journey through France which will accept his previous licence as valid. I deplore his tactics but cannot help sympathise with his predicament.
Kirkpatrick has a further interest to me. That is that he has always been a Communist and in the late forties and fifties went to China and encountered not only Mao Tse Tung and his Communists, but also Chiang-kai Shek who were then still in an alliance to fight the war against Japan and he has not only written on this, but possesses unique photographs on living conditions and the like. But awkward to the last, he has a written script which I have constantly suggested he should publish as it stands and have said that I would share the cost. But so far he has not produced it and with bouts of inertia, loneliness and loss of confidence the draft may never be published, unless others join me in urging its publication. Messages addressed to me will be passed on.
One final point remains. Both Mushtaq and Kirkpatrick are healthy human animals and both are in need of a wife, preferably younger than themselves! Bill will settle for one interested in left-wing politics and modern culture. Mushtak certainly does not want another Muslim wife, would not object to a white one, but prefers a Black one. And who do they turn to for a marriage broker but me!. I’ve told them I don’t run a marriage bureau, but I would put their requirements into today’s BLOG. That I have done, I can do no more!

EDWARD UPWARD AND MARK KERMODE.
There has been a spate of articles on Mark Kermode this week. My thoughts immediately turned to Edward Upward our 103 year old Communist, sole survivor of the Auden, Isherwood radicals of the 1930s and whose last book A Renegade in Springtime was published on his 100th birthday with an introduction by Stephen Spender. Edward when he moved from the Isle of Wight to the north of England to be with his daughter had to sell his library and I thought I remembered that Mark Kermode was involved in the sale. A quick email to Janet Upward his daughter- in -law brought the response that Kermode was indeed concerned with the sale. Edward’s political thoughts today tend to centre around his earlier activities.
So what are the possibilities of Mark Kermode paying tribute to Edward Upward and representing the views that Edward has expressed all his life?

SICK-MAKING.
The much vaunted speech of Gordon Brown has now been made. No mention of the suffering of the Iraqi and Afghan people. Much nauseating talk of trusting this son of the manse. Only three words for it - dangerous sanctimonious humbug.

FOOLISHNESS UNLIMITED
Bright eyed David Miliband demands another 10 years of power for Labour. As the Labour Party Conference opens Brown’s destruction of the party goes unheeded in the euphoria and

expectation of another ten years of power of yet another model of Labour Party fashioned this time in the image of Gordon Brown. But it is still acapitalist party nevertheless tied to American Neo-Cons with their wars present and future and determination to hold down living standards while making promises of improvements that inevitably cannot be met so that health, education and social services are cut and workers dismissed.
The reasons why Brown cannot be trusted is because no Social Democratic Party has ever brought about the Socialism to which their party is committed. Not abroad and not in Britain despite having had leaders, such as Ramsay MacDonald, almost worshipped by working people in his time who sold out to the Tories, Clement Attlee who fashioned the Welfare State but who eventually committed us to the Cold War. And we’ve ended up with charlatans such as Blair and now Brown offers himself. No thank you.

WHO CONTROLS WOLVERHAMPTON?
It used to be controlled by a local council duly elected with monthly meetings where decisions were made in full council every month at meetings overlooked by a legal person, the Town Clerk, who was there to see that the Council kept within its legal limits. Every year there was an election at which one third of the Councillors came up for re-election. That was democracy. Of course, things must change, But not too much since Wolverhampton has remained virtually the same size since it was enlarged in 1966 and its population is perhaps a little less than it was if anything.
I have spent much of the week-end downloading documents that should give me an answer and I am still far from having solved the mystery, but I think I ought to let the citizens of Wolverhampton know what progress I have made. I start with People Making Places Better, always a good thing to do, but this is something that has been said for thirty years or more so if it still needs doing one cannot have much confidence in it this time round. Partners in Change are at Regent House, Bath Avenue W’ton. but the partners are based in Leeds, Watford, although three of them are based in Wolverhampton. ‘About Us’ says PinC are working for community, government, and housing and their consultancy helps people make things better through advice, information and practical support. Current and recent clients include Salford, Cambridge, Cheltenham Coventry, Ealing, and so on, down to Yorkshire and Humber Tenants and Residents. Not too much here on Wolverhampton.
Returning nearer to home we have a document headed, ‘Regeneration Partnerships in Wolverhampton Current Governance’. This reintroduces Partnership for Change and widens its remit to W’ton Early Years, Sure Start and W’ton Chamber of Commerce. This looks as if it is taking aboard virtually everything, that one would think should be the provenance of Wolverhampton City Council.
Let us come back to some of the things the Wolverhampton City Council is doing. A Cabinet meeting of 24 Jan 2007 of the Regeneration and Enterprise Portfolio discusses a recommendation to consider an application to DCLG (the government depart

departmenet dealing with local government affairs) for the establishment of a Wolverhampton Development Company as an Urban Regeneration Company. Developments for April-June 2007 included funding approval from AWM and a budget allocation from W’ton City Council. Also recruitment of a high profile private sector chairman, and recruitment of a chief executive. One can ask why the Chief Executive of the W’ton Council should not be in charge of this work and he delegate appointments to AWM.
We have not yet mentioned Partners in Change. a Housing Community Consultancy with another fancy slogan, ‘All Cultures, One Voice’ which has funded 16 studies in Whitmore Reans as well as others for Birmingham City Connexions and Black Country

Connexions. It seems time ask what the duties are of our newish W’ton Chief Executive. All may be made clear on the extensive Wolverhampton City Website, but I haven’t the time to sort it out.
Then there was the appointment just a few weeks ago of yet another Regeneration chief whose name I have forgotten, but who was kind enough to say how honoured he was to become the Regeneration head of such an important city as Wolverhampton.
One becomes aware that the drive for these multifarious changes comes from the Government, but their papers are issued not by the Departments themselves but for the Deputy Prime Minister’s office.
There is much to do to establish who controls Wolverhampton, but its clearly not us, the voters and council tax payers.

MORE TROUBLE FOR WOLVERHAMPTON.
City’s university is named one of the worst, blares Saturday’s Express and Star. 114th this year against 116 last year in a table of 123 in the Good University Guide. Caroline Gipps the University Vince-Chancellor makes the best of a bad job in defending the University, but misses the real point. That is that the University achieved fame as the first to recruit a majority of ethnic minority students, and its fame would have been even greater if the Vice-Chancellor of the time, John Brookes, had been prepared to challenge Oxbridge and create a multicultural university which would have attracted the best EM students and staff from around the world and brought world renown to Wolverhampton. Instead Brookes wanted to imitate the posh Universities and I fear the present V-C is in the same mould. Even today the relevant

statistics would indicate the a much higher place for our University, but this data is not collected. This data would include the poverty ratio of the areas from which the students come , their ability to pay the fees demanded, and the type of employment they are likely to achieve when they leave. We are not prepared to see our unique university defamed. The figures we demand used to be provided by the Wolverhampton Race Equality Council and the University’s Equal Opportunities Committee. We think that our new race unit Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton (REPW) and the University’s EOC should press for such essential information.

THIS IS THE WEEK THAT WAS FOR GORDON BROWN.
Brave champion of the Iraqi people, or George W.Bush’s poodle? I am surrounded with papers and journals all of them offering advice to Brown and most offering events and demos during this week of the Labour Party conference. My good friend Tony Benn has set the scene by declaring that if Brown’s present proceedings go through it will be the end of the party as we know it and parliament will be reduced to a club of powerless people whose only role will be to provide the cash and do the donkey work at election time of getting people out to vote when both canvasser and elector knows that power has moved to the Prime Minister and a few favoured stooges, that democracy has vanished and Britain is a dictatorship. And Brown defends these proposals in an article in the Guardian today in which he admits the truth of this, but the dictatorship he will exercise will be a benign one. Some hopes! But rank and filers think differently. Whether it is the New Statesman, Tribune, or the two papers closest to the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, Labour Briefing and Socialist Group all demand that the Blairite policies be radically changed; and I must say the serried ranks
of Diane Abbot, Ken Livingstone, Jon Cruddas, Jeremy Corbyn and all the trade union leaders make me think the same way.
SPORT AND PATRIOTISM.
Through football, cricket,rugby, and golf to darts, times they are a changing. Football dominates with Arsenal leading the pack that believes teams should remain British. Jose Mourino has had enough of being overruled by Abramovitch the Russian oligarch who stole his money from the Russian people and takes himself abroad with a nice little earner of about £313 million and Gary Player talks of drugs in golf.
Other billionaires are also in trouble. The one from Thailand controlling Manchester City is accused of embezzlement, and the one from Iceland controlling West Ham for delinquencies of various sorts. Still the Manchester City manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, behaves as if nothing has happened, Martin O’Neil of Aston Villa is disappointed with the start of his club owned by another American, Lerner, and Manchester United in hock to the American Glasers have had an indifferent start.
Above them all swirls the effects of the collapse of Northern Rock and whether Gordon Brown is the wizard he imagines himself to be. A nineteenth century slump like the Wall Street Crash could reduce people to penury and bankrupt our football clubs. Only Arsenal andWolves are behaving responsibly by ensuring that their clubs are not sold to foreigners. And both have a wider responsibility - to ensure that our basic industries are not sold to speculators and get-rich-quick merchants. We are at the mercy of Gordon Brown to prevent this, and it must be said that the omens are not good.
BOOKS.
Those of us who are bibliophiles treasure books more than almost anything else. On my shelves this week I have a wonderful 800 page biography of Paul Robeson by Martin Duberman;the nineteenth century classic The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade; The Bookseller of Kabul, one of the most remarkable books I have ever read by a woman author Asne Seierstad; and a local classic Tales of Tumble Fold by Joseph Whittaker, a man born in the worst slums of Wolverhampton who raised himself by his own bootstraps to become a local political activist and an author of minor national renown.
Tumble Fold I have read, Bookseller of Kabul I shall certainly read, but 800 pages of Paul Robeson? Well probably yes but only because he is the man I most admire (’the acclaimed biography of the great actor, singer, political radical and advocate of racial equality’, as the front page has it), and also because I had the great good fortune and privilege of both seeing him acting in Othello and to listen to him at political rallies and shows one of which was at Wolverhampton.
But the numberless books I would dearly love to read, but have no time to, and also the fact that I now have no more room for books in my house, raises a question being discussed this week, do those who review books actually read them or do they sometimes rely on the blurb.
The matter is pertinent at a time when the list of books shortlisted for the Booker prize have been
announced.
I have an interest in this subject because I once complained to the Booker Committee about this. Not actually on the choice of books, but that the chosen reviewers, the celebrities invited to the ceremony, the journalists and the ordinary people who attended the show seemed all to be white. The Committee wrote back to me agreeing that ethnic minority people could be better represented and one of those who agreed with me was Roy Hattersley. Whether the situation is sufficiently rectified will be clear at this year’s ceremony.
BORROWED TIME - THE STORY OF BRITAIN BETWEEN THEWARS.
I have chosen this book by Roy Hattersley and reviewed in the Guardian today for a number of reasons. The first is that unlike Roy and Francis Beckett I actually lived and experienced these times. For me the world was delineated by the Second World War and the fight to prevent it. After Neville Chamberlain and his fellow Appeasers whose aim was to join Hitler and destroy Communism finally learnedt heir lesson after Munich and were obliged to declare war on Germany, Britain was left to fight alone with a government always liable to capitulate until, after Dunkirk it was replaced by Churchill. But the real turning point was that after the Battle of Britain had been won in the air, Hitler attackedthe Soviet Union and it was the sacrifices of the Red Army and the Soviet people which eventually made victory possible. I see little of this sacrifice, first by British people in the blitz and then the agony of the Russians in Beckett’s review.
Beckett says he is a little miffed at giving Hattersley a copy of his book, the Rebel who Lost his Cause and him not using it, and I feel a little miffed about my relations with Francis which hinge on the Cold War period from the1950s.
My friendship with Beckett began in the 1980s when I was researching my book Socialism in Birminghamand the Black Country 1850-1939. The bond was that Francis’ father was one of the leaders of the militant, post-war National Union of ExServicemen (NUX), but in 1931 after Ramsay MacDonald had betrayed the second Labour government and formed the so-called National Government, John Beckett followed Oswald Mosley out of the Labour Party and became a leader of the British Union of Fascists.
Our ways parted after that and Francis wrote his important book The Blairs and their Court in 2004.
Believing that Francis would support much of what I was doing, I offered him a project which I said would ‘run and run’ . This was the fight of the Friends of Bilston Community College for recognition of it as the first multicultural college in Britain. Francis rather ‘miffed’ me then by refusing to take up the Bilston question, which has, of course, ‘run and run’ and which has now been referred to the Freedom of Information Act and, only this week to the European Court of Human Rights and we feel confident that the College will be re-established.

To return to the book review Paul Robeson’s Othello with Peggy Ashcrot sums up quite accurately the state of racist Britain between the wars by relating that one London editor walked out according to Hannen Swaffer because ‘there were negroes around him in the stalls. The critic James Agate called it ‘nigger Shakespeare’ and thought Desdemona’s decision to ‘chose a darkie’ showed she had a’ fragile intellect’ and Peggy Ashcroft had to face moronic questions from journalists about whether she minded being kissed by a black man on stage.
Without reading the book, (which I would like to do if I had the time), this book seems a worthy read, but strengthens my belief that while I am still alive I will resist those who would revise the history of one of the most turbulent centuries that mankind has known.

      Finally David Cole says that if anyone attempts to thwart W’ton Councils honourable intentions, the NUT will launch a full scale campaign against them.

NOT AN ORDINARY DAY.
Yesterday was supposed to be an ordinary day, but we were cautious enough to put ’so far’ and it was the evening hours which made it far from an ordinary day. The cricket with Yuvravj Singh the Indian batsman being only the fourth to hit six sixes in an over, and Chris Broad, the Englishman who must live the rest of his life knowing that he was the victim. England’s failure to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup was already established, but Yuvrag’s feat was the icing on the cake
Then, again, Arsenal won in style and Man.United qualified in their Eufa Cup groups last night. But the bombshell fell later at night when Jose Mourinho parted company with the owner of Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch whose billions were stolen from the Russian people.

WHAT WILL TODAY BRING?
As is my wont, I turn first to the Guardian newspaper. Here I find the usual mixture of progressive and reactionary material. That’s objectivity for you!
I start with my good friend Tony Benn who has an article entitled ‘My last real Conference’. Tony writes that after leaving Parliament after 50 years (the longest serving member), in order to do some real politics, his efforts have always been to influence the Labour Party Conference. But Gordon Brown is now changing that, and if current proposals go forward party members will be left with only one function. That will be to get councillors and MPs elected with policies that they have played no part in formulating. This would complete the New Labour project under which the conference becomes a platform for ministers and a few hand picked trade union delegates. There would be no point in joining the party locally or trade unions being affiliated in the hope of discussing policy because it will be clear that not only do ministers not want certain policies passed , but also that they don’t want any decisions reached that they do not control.
This, of course, would also affect MPs who would become ‘elected civil servants’. and the annual Conference would then be a fan club for of parliamentary bigwigs and their business fans. Even the fringe meetings, now such an important part of party democracy will disappear because those who attend will know that the issue they discuss will not get on the Conference floor.
This is the issue to be discussed at the Conference. It is the biggest issue since the party was founded. It will end the role of parliament in a democratic society and we will be left a dictatorship like any other dictatorship. So Tony Benn urges that the Conference at Bournemouth rejects the resolution out of hand.
Next in the Guardian is an article by Timothy Garton Ash stating that we must weigh the moral cost of withdrawal from Basra and Baghdad. Timothy is usually a good left-wing anti-Bush opponent of the war in Iraq, but he seems to have caught a dose of British imperialistitis. Instead of calling for a complete withdrawal NOW before Iraq disintegrates he is still enough of an imperialist to believe that Britain has a role to play because of the innate belief in western civilisation being superior to any other civilisation. Until he gives up this fallacy of the white man’s burden he will continue to bring solace to George W Bush and his Neo-Cons.

THE RACIST WITCH HUNT.
Much more to the point is Seamus Milne’s article, again in the Guardian today, that a renewed anti-Muslim media campaign is partly driven by a right-wing political agenda which seeks to justify war.We are being bombarded with a barrage of lurid and hostile stories about Muslims that can only inflame anti-Muslim feeling.
This comes not only from right-wing but also other sources. Its not only the Daily Express denunciation of Muslims as ‘alien and threatening’, nor the rants of Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail. it is so called liberal establishment. An hour long Channel 4 Dispatches programme about attacks on Muslim converts to Christianity; a newsnight programme on radical Islamic books in east London libraries; a Times front-page splash about ‘hardline Muslim takeover of British mosques. On a Newsnight programme it was apparently thought that Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP sacked by David Cameron for racially inflammatory remarks, and recently appointed by Gordon Brown as his security advisor was a suitable person to comment on Muslim issues; that Martin Amis denounced liberal relativist appeasers as ‘racist, misogynist, homophobic, totalitarian, inquisitorial, imperialist and genocidal’ . This relentless public invective against Muslims is clearly fuelled by a political agenda aimed to show that jihadist violence is driven by a social ideology rather than from decades of western invasion, occupation and support for Muslim dictators across the world.
All this gives point to the latest and last CRE report which shows 15 government departments (the vast majority) being racist. Racism is alive and well in Britain, unfortunately. It also gives point to our own efforts here in Wolverhampton to build a genuinely anti-racist and multicultural society.

JUST AN ORDINARY DAY.
Nothing much happened today, so far, a day to catch up with things. An absolutely brilliant article in today’s Guardian by Simon Jenkins under a misleading headline Home Ownership Mania is behind this Mass Hysteria. It is in fact a total debunking of Gordon Brown from his day one, saying that he has always been an incompetent economist and remains so to this day. Mind you, I take issue with Simon here, my having been the only person to my knowledge to have compared Brown with Lord Maynard Keynes the one British political economist of world stature since World War One and patriot who stood against the US bankers and politicians after the second world war as well as the first. I still don’t think you can write Brown off as an economist, although as a politician he is now the new George W.Bush backside licker and not to be talked of by honest men and women. So, I have sent an email to Simon Jenkins congratulating him on his article and commending it to all within my influence.
I have said quite frequently that to go down to Joe Davies, our fairground organ expert, and steam engine prize winner, our ex-police ‘bobby with a hobby’, whose bungalow is a place where the world congregates. So it was today. First the local ladies exercising their dogs on expandable leads paused briefly to exchange greetings. Then Bill Wain, the fanatical West Bromwich Albion supporter, who has to stomach the fact that support is falling and that instead of being able to extend the Hawthorns, there will barely enough money to repair the ground. Such is the price for falling out of the Premiership. In fact Bill is off to Australia for a few weeks and was doing something which seemed queer to me until it was explained. He was filling up his fridge and freezer before departing and the cost of electricity in running them while he is away is apparently less than leaving them empty. Sounds crazy, but is apparently true.
Then came an acquaintance of Joe Davies, a trucker by ex-profession. After talking on lorries and steam engines for some time, he asked who I was and I told him. In amazement and astonishment he said, you’re not THE George Barnsby and when I admitted to that he said he had always read my letters in the Express and Star from the mid -1950s until the paper started to boycott me when I called them institutional racists and they attempted to sue me for calling them racists, which of course, I hadn’t. This blew over and today the paper prints some of my letters. At this time he was also a supporter of the Soviet Union and expressed other views which suggested that he was, like me, a Communist
Up to this point Joe was looking a bit put out that the conversation concerned my little bit of fame and support for Communism. But then our trucker absolutely astonished me by suggesting that there should be the death penalty for all illegal immigrants and Joe pricked up his ears, because although he is against the death penalty, he is for pretty drastic treatment of illegal immigrants. But I had to disassociate myself very fundamentally with these views, especially since it also concerned support for Enoch Powell.
With me musing on how it was possible for one man to have some views that were so progressive and others that were so reactionary we parted and I resumed my daily exercising by walking up and down Henwood Rd. But then our trucker friend caught me up and asked me what my views are on Putin, the Russian leader. I said my feelings were mixed although the most important point is that he is opposed to the US neo-cons and to George Bush. He then talked enthusiastically about the new Russia and the present prosperity of the Russian people, after the devastation and robbery under the drunken leader whose name I cannot at the moment recall, who sold off Russia’s industries to the oligarchs. Our trucker then pulled off his greatest surprise by pulling out from around his neck a chain with a medallion of all people that of Lenin! I am sure we shall meet quite frequently in the future.

RACISM
The greatest problem of the world is that of the ‘color line’. That was said by the great Black American scholar and Communist, WEB du Bois. If that was true of the nineteenth century it is even truer of the twenty-first and this has been emphasised by the last report of the Race Equality Council before it is put out of business and is replaced by the very dubious Commission for Equality and Human Rights under that supporter of the war in Iraq, Sir Trevor Phillips. The report says that the vast majority of government departments continue racist in their domination by white personnel and this remains the problem in Wolverhampton as elsewhere.
But the new Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton (REPW) it seems is still not complete and I have been in touch with Parvinder Chana, the lady at present in control who I think I can persuade to come and visit me to explain the new set up in Wolverhampton. I have also been very pleased to have contact with Simeon Green, an old friends from the days of Wolverhampton Race Equality Council who is now in charge of anti-harassment work among W’ton City employees. He is not on the committee of REPW, which I consider is a weakness, nor is Frank Reeves both of whom I know as committed anti-racists who have proved that they cannot be bought or promoted to betray their principles, as many have done, and should therefore be on the REPW committee. We shall see what happens.