The Barnsby Blog

TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.
I didn’t imagine when I took the slogan above that it would be ushered
in by a real earthquake of such a scale that the Express and Star is now
publishing reminiscences about it. Nor when I wrote that Wolverhampton City
and Education Authorities are seeing Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden if
they think that the League Tables of GCSE results published last night are a
true reflection of the state of education in Wolverhampton, or that other
matters in last night’s BLOG such as the lack of concern for our fellow
Muslim citizens were best brought to the attention of our citizens in this
way

WHO KNOWS GEORGE BARNSBY?
In fact the question of who I know is best turned on its head by asking
who knows me. I gave examples of this from my replies to people who had
either asked me for information.
Who is the secretary of the local branch of UCU (the new University
and College Union) of which I am a retired member? I do not know. No one
has contacted me but if I open a sort of question and answer bureau perhaps
I will learn.
More important is what is St.Modwen property developers doing after
their failure to take over Wolverhampton’s Eye Infirmary from lack of money
and other problems at the Dudley Zoo site. They are in real trouble, like
most property developers and our eye infirmary should revert to its previous
independent management, but where are they and who will take the initiative
in bringing them together.
Lastly, I raise again the question Who rules Wolverhampton posed by the
multiplicity of ‘regenerating’ organisations claiming to have vast sums of
money avaible to do this, but in fact in the same position as Modwen (and,
of course, the Gordon Brown government) of being stoney broke and therefore
impotent. The continued failure of the chief executive, Richard Carr, (see
BLOG Tuesday 26 Feb The Chief Executive with Nothing to Do!) to discuss this
question is not only highly damaging to his own reputation, but is probably
illegal too.

WELCOME TO MY NEW FOUND FRIEND PROFESSOR RICK TRAINOR.
My plan to have people identify me rather than the other way
round has brought instant success. I thought I knew Rick Trainor and I was
right. He emails me to say that we met about 30 years ago at my house and I
gave him advice when he was researching an Oxford D.Phil which later became
an OUP book, ‘Black Country Elites: The Exercise of Authority in an
Industrialised Area 1830-1900′. A couple of years later he wrote a review of
one of my books for the Blackcountryman and he thinks that we corresponded
subsequently. So not only were we friends, but Rick is ‘one of us’ as a
historian of the Black Country
Rick was lecturing at Wolverhampton University last night on a theme of
Victorian history, but I had to inform him that at age 89 I was too old and
frail to attend his lecture. He has promised to let me have a summary of
his lecture and I look forward to reading it and being in contact with an
influential person whose views on war, peace and history may not be too far
away from mine.

WHO ELSE KNOWS GEORGE BARNSBY?
Further success comes with an email from Ian Payne of Walsall who tells
me that he is a former member of the Labour Party who left when Blair
supported the war in Iraq in 2003. He says he lives in Stafford Street,
Walsall where there is a blue plaque to Joseph Deakin one of the victims of
the so-called Walsall Anarchist Bomb Plot 1892 of which I was the first
to write a comprehensive account in my Socialism in Birmingham and the Black
Country 1850-1939. Ian says he is thinking of writing a biography of Deakin
and asks if I can give him sources of research. He mentions the Walsall
Archives at Essex Street and I think that would be a splendid idea. I
often visited it some years ago and remember the chief librarian as a very
stern lady devoted to her craft and a friendly sort of bloke who published
a monthly record of the work of the Archives. Are they both still at Walsall
Archives and will they let me know if they can help
But most important is the mention of the blue plaque. I don’t think that
we have such a plaque of any Wolverhampton labour activist, and this may be
partly due to the fact that residences where they once lived have been
knocked down. But to be successful in have a plaque erected involves a
dedicated campaign. Was there or is there such a campaign in Walsall? I
have
never heard of it. Perhaps the plaque man in Wolverhampton knows, but I
forget his name and we must depend on this item acting as a lost and found
agency again from somebody who knows me.

PROTECTING OUR MUSLIM FELLOW CITIZENS.
The two most important organisations in Wolverhampton caring for
Muslims should be the new Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton set up
after W’ton Race Equality Council (WREC) had been closed so precipitately by
Sir Trevor Philipps, now the head of New Labour’s Commission for Equality
and Human Rights a most unsuitable person who supports the war in Iraq. The
other is the Wolverhampton Inter-Faith Group. Neither of these groups
appear to be making public statements even at this time when the government
is concerning itself with infiltrating local Muslim groups in its illegal
and racist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine. Dafur and elsewhere. This
has left Muslims to defend themselves and the latest to put pen to papers is
Muhammad Yaseen Khan in a letter to the Express and Star of February 21.
Muhammad who is president of the Ahmaddiyya Muslim Association of
Wolverhampton points out that the Archbishop of Canterbury was not
advocating Sharia law for Britain and that most Muslims are happy to live in
England under English law which does not preclude them from observing their
religious practices and see no contradiction in being British and Muslim.
Another important organisation, the Methodist Church Centre, with large
numbers of ethnic minority members, is also staying mum, when it should be
engaging in co-operating with the local community. After all, the greatest
terrorists in the world are George W.Bush and his newest ally Gordon Brown.
If they were put under lock and key, terrorism would virtually disappear.

THE COST OF THE WAR IN IRAQ.
The Guardian today printed the estimates of Nobel prize-winning
economist, Joseph Stiglitz, of the true cost of the war in Iraq to the USA.
It comes to the unimaginable total of $3 trillion dollars. Military
operations have already exceeded the cost of 12 years of war in Vietnam and
twice as much as the Korean War. $1 trillion is the amount US must pay by
2017 in interest for the sums borrowed to finance the war. Large amounts of
cash go missing, for instance the well publicised $8.8billion Development
Fund for Iraq. But then, Bush and his Neo-cons never expected to pay for the
war. This was to be paid for by Iraqi oil as they moved to the next member
of the so-called ‘axis of evil’ planned to be Iran or North Korea. Out of
date equipment, not enough US volunteer soldiers so that foreign mercenaries
cost $400k each compared with $40k for a US serviceman. The scandal of lack
of medical care for US wounded in the short-term and none at all long term.
The whole horrifying spectacle of wars started that never can be won and
wars into which Britain has been dragged not entirely unwillingly, although
most EU nations have refused to involve their forces. All this is to be
found in ‘The Three Trillion Dollar War’ by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
at ?20 published by Allen Lane

WOLVERHAMPTON EDUCATION AUTHORITIES CONTINUE TO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES.
The GCSE exam results for Wolverhampton secondary schools have now been
officially released withholding once again key information which would
enable us to judge of the real situation in education in Wolverhampton. For
a fuller analysis see this BLOG tomorrow.

>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “George Barnsby”
> To: “George Barnsby”
> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 3:52 PM
> Subject: GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 27TH 2008
> www.gbpeopleslibrary
>
>
>> DAY TEN OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
>> The future of Wolverhampton is inextricably linked with its history.
>> I took my theme from Christopher Hill’s book of that name published in
>> 1972 a survey of the English revolution of the seventeenth century.
>> Britain was the first country to break the class shackles of feudalism
>> and enter the world of Capitalism. Our advance made possible the French
>> Revolution of the eighteenth century which was followed in the twentieth
>> century by the Russian revolutions.
>> Let’s recap the situation we find ourselves in in Day 10 of the World
>> Turned Upside Down. Here George W.Bush led the American Twentieth Century
>> of the Neo-Cons who believed that America was more powerful than all
>> other countries in the world and it was its duty to unilaterally conquer
>> the world and shape it to its own image. Fortunately this pipe dream was
>> quashed at the attempt to conquer Iraq and the World was Turned Upside
>> Down on the day that the American people voted Democrats in control of
>> both houses of Congress. From that day Bush was reduced from the most
>> powerful tyrant in the world to a gibbering idiot bereft of power and
>> short of money as a capitalist crises of 1930s proportions threatens to
>> sweep capitalism away.
>> Meanwhile in Britain Thatcherism was followed by New Labour presided
>> over by Tony Blair who made the blunder of supporting Bush’s war in Iraq.
>> A long contest between Blair and Gordon Brown resulted eventually in the
>> eviction of Blair, but Brown turns out to be an incompetent impostor who
>> possesses neither influence nor money. The present sleaze and scandals of
>> New Labour are the mirror image of Bush and his Neo-Cons. Power has
>> passed from them to us, the common people and our next job is to use that
>> power to build a multicultural Britain in this unknown, new multicultural
>> world.
>> Meanwhile the novelty of the World Turned Upside Down is perhaps
>> wearing off and I should maybe take the slogan of the third great
>> revolution of our era, the Russian revolution. This was also celebrated
>> with a famous book by the American radical, John Reed, and was called
>> ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’. So for my next ten BLOGS I shall use
>> that title.
>>
> WOLVERHAMPTON - CITY RISEN FROM ALLEGED RACIST CAPITAL OF BRITAIN IN THE
> DAYS OF ENOCH POWELL 1966-74 TO PREMIER UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATION CENTRE,
> SPORT, AND BUSINESS AREA SINCE 2003.
> Wolverhampton is a unique city having drawn itself up by its own
> bootstraps to vie with Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool etc. as the
> Cultural Capital of Britain. Consider its record. The first multicultural
> college in Britain in the dark days of mass unemployment in the 1970s,
> Bilston Community College (BCC) led by Keith Wymer and Frank Reeves. The
> first college in Britain to have one third of its staff non-white. The
> first college to offer education to those with no previous educational
> qualifications at a time when in Bilston the unemployment was 25% and the
> last blast furnace in Bilston was being closed. The first college in
> Britain stamping out racism and offering its ethnic minority population a
> safe venue for its ceremonies such as weddings, birthdays, retirement etc.
> BCC was too successful for its own good and was closed by bigots such
> as David Blunkett, then education secretary and racists such as John
> Mellor, then Tory councillor an unreconstructed enthusiast for Enoch
> Powell. The next educational success was Wolverhampton University when it
> became the first in Britain to enrol more than 50% ethnic minority
> students. The University continued to attract excellent staff and students
> in Britain and could have transformed the national educational system, but
> once again it was too successful for its own good and led by what I have
> called its ‘three bad apples’ the governors chose to ape Oxford and
> Cambridge rather than strike out on its unique multicultural path of
> bringing equality for all.
> Sport followed education. Wolves FC was the most successful football
> club in Britain at one time and led the struggle under Sir Jack Hayward,
> together with Arsenal, to see that Britain’s clubs remained British and
> that England’s coach should be an Englishman. This is a struggle still to
> be determined, of course.
> But what of other sports? Percy Stallard had introduced road cycle
> racing to Britain and yet had been denied a place in Wolverhampton’s
> unique (yes I do know what this word means) Sporting Hall of Fame. A
> campaign led by Percy’s daughter and her husband has been successful. It
> should be noted that no cycling Grand Prixbarnsb in the world would have
> been possible had it not been for Percy Stallard.
> Another Olympic sport of which Wolverhampton was the centre was the
> sport of Rifle Shooting pioneered both in war and peace by Wolverhampton
> gun smith Frank Spittle. When Aldersley Stadium was opened it had the
> capacity to host both Small Bore Rifle Shooting and athletic Olympic
> events. But the original Rifle Range attached to Aldersley was almost
> destroyed and the Aldersley track is now no longer suited to Olympic
> events. Frank Spittle has had to spend the best years of his life fighting
> against these false economies and this battle is also by no means over.
> If cycling has been a Wolverhampton centred sport, so also has motor
> cycle racing. Pioneered by Joe Davies, a Shropshire lad who migrated to
> Wolverhampton to become a policeman after the 2nd World War, Joe has
> become the spokesperson for a large range of industrial causes, including
> on the one hand the Pumping Station at Wombourn where the current
> engineer, Len Crane has been honoured recently for his engineering. Joe
> Davies is also the centre of a tight knit group of engineers, amazingly
> skilled in the arts of reproducing either at full scale or in miniature
> the mechanical masterpieces of the past. They are the sole remaining
> heirs to the industrial past of Britain which successive governments have
> been busy giving away to foreigners.
> Joe Davies is also the centre of a remarkable network of ex-servicemen.
> Himself an airborne veteran, he sees that our 2nd World War heroes, now
> widely recognised as saving us from fascist tyranny and many now in their
> nineties are suitably interred and their regimental organisations which
> tend to close as their members die off are taken over by a central
> organisation whose assets can be used to assist their descendants or
> research into the regiments. The most important example in the West
> Midlands has been the taking over of all SE.Asia regimental associations
> by the Burma Star Association which has been able to support the Kohima
> veterans, scene of some of the worst fighting of the war. Here a memorial
> has been raised at the Lich Gates, near St.Peter’s Church Wolverhampton,
> with the Kohima watchword which reads, ‘Tell those who follow that we gave
> our Yesterdays for your Todays’.
>
>BUSINESS IN WOLVERHAMPTON.
Finally we come to the businesses by which we live and the patriotism
of believing that they should be British owned. Most of our enterprises have
disappeared into private hands through the laissez-faire policy of
capitalist competition, but also from the global organisations we belong to,
notably the Common Market or European Union and what began as a military
organisation NATO now the Atlantic Treaty Organisation. None of these
organisations provide the free trade that they promised and countries such
as Hungary are complaining that their industries have been taken over by
foreigners and that they are starving in the midst of plenty. These are
complex questions and business people tend to be conservative, although the
number motivated by patriotism such as Sir Jack Hayward have never been
negligible and are probably growing in the present situation.
In Wolverhampton we have been allocated to Business Link West Midlands
which has pursued a very progressive policy. In particular it has encouraged
the growth of Inspirational Women with a remarkable record of assisting
women to set up businesses and holding annual dinners and business awards to
African-Caribbean Businesses.
Thus business plays its part in making Wolverhampton the City of
Culture, Education, Sport and Business of 2009 which it can be if all people
and organisations play their part.

—– Original Message —–
From: “George Barnsby”
To: “George Barnsby”
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 7:10 PM
Subject: GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG TUESDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2008
www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk

> THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE WITH NOTHING TO DO!
> Richard Carr, Wolverhampton chief executive, and Roger Lawrence the
> Labour leader of Wolverhampton council should be running the City. Instead
> it seems to be run by a wide range of so-called ‘regeneration’ outfits
> whose functions and finances are of a very dubious nature. I have asked
> both of these gentlemen to explain how the city is run, but they are both
> in the category of those who will not reply to people like me. When I ring
> Mr.Carr, however, I am told that his office is closed and he is not
> available. This suggests that he has virtually nothing to do and the fact
> that the chief executive’s office is closed is a national scandal.
> Yesterday it was announced that Mr.Carr has authorised advertisements
> for an assistant chief executive at a salary of about ?80,000 pa whose
> job it will be to support him in his almost non-existent duties, so that
> it is little wonder that this appointment is regarded as a scandal by the
> Tories and other opposition parties in the City. To make matters worse,
> Brian Bailey, W’ton’s finance director who is well regarded and has
> steered clear of controversy is to leave in April 2009 to manage the ?8
> billion West Midlands Pension Fund. Whoever gets the Wolverhampton job
> will be dealing with a budget of over ?340 million, said Councillor
> Milkinder Jaspal, cabinet member for organisation, people and performance.
> With this sort of money and lack of control there is every likelihood of
> embezzlement on an Enron or Northern Rock scale. Unless Mr.Carr and Roger
> Lawrence come clean and explain what is going on they’re liable to end up
> in jail.

LABOUR HISTORY REVIEW.
The December 2007 edition arrived today. One of its main articles is by
John Benson of W’ton University entitled One Man and his Women: Domestic
Service in Edwardian England. This is a fascinating story of a Wolverhampton
business man Edward Lawrence and his relations with his middle class female
relations and his working class servants, suggesting that for a number of
reasons, including their proximity to their homes, they were not as
compliant as many authorities have assumed.
Also in this issue is an obituary of Monty Johnstone. Throughout his
life he was fascinated by the history of Communism and absorbed in its
contemporary predicament. He was only twelve years old when he joined the
YCL (Young Communist League) in 1941. Early contact with the Revolutionary
Communist Party induced a life long interest in Trotskyism, but it was as an
opponent of this doctrine that he became the Communist Party of Great
Britain’s expert on this subject. During 1948-49 he spent two years in the
Education Corps where he seized every opportunity to work with local
Communists. When demobbed he was employed full-time by the YCL and in the
ensuing six years he edited the YCL weekly, Challenge.
The earthquake of 1956 failed to shake his faith in the Party, but
sceptisim of the Soviet Party developed after Khrushchev’s revelations. He
was fluent in French and German and mastered Russian. He was on the
executive committee of the CPGB from 1985 to 1989 and regretted its
transformation into Democratic Left.
Monty’s chief personal characteristic was a complete indifference to
personal comfort, and in this respect he resembled T.A. Jackson of earlier
years whose most famous aphorism when discussing the difference between
co-operating with the Labour Party and co-operating with their leaders in
the years following the General Strike was that he would happily take the
Labour leaders by the hand as a preliminary to taking them by the throat.
Neither Tommy nor Monty cared a jot about their personal appearances, but
each was politically committed to Communism and the cause of the Party.
A third feature of this issue of the LHR is its annual Bibliograpy of
British Labour Publications for the year 2006 followed by its Theses and
Dissertations on British and Irish Labour History for the same year both by
Yasmin Adeeb and Fath Boud. Of the theses the following have proved valuable
locally: A Wolverhampton University thesis by R.Condron on
Anarcho-Syndicalist unions in Cuba 1917-1925 and articles in journals by
stalwarts such as Kevin Morgan on Labour and Housing 1918-51: John
Callaghan’s ‘The Plan to capture the British Labour Party and its
Paradoxical Results which appeared in the Journal of Contemporary History
and the joint piece by John Callaghan and Kevin Morgan, The Open Conspirary
of the Communist Party and the case of W.N.Ewer communist and anti-communist
in the Historical Journal vol 49 No.2. It would seem that the only book is
Keith Flett’s Chartism after 1848.

JUSTICE FOR PETE CARTER.
Now that justice has been done to Monty Johnstone with several
adequate obituaries notably in LHR and the Guardian, I would want to turn my
attention to Pete Carter who I tend to regard as a working class equivalent
of middle class Monty. Pete has returned to his roots in the Black Country
with a canal boat at Wednesbury.
He stood as a Parliamentary candidate against Enoch Powell and was most
famous in my eyes for being a Builders’ Union organiser who filled the boot
of his car with copies of Robert Tressell’s ‘The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists’, and sold them at each site he visited. Pete has in recent
years removed himself from progressive activity but has recently been
re-united with Mike Shilvock his second in command in the famous Builders’
Strikeof 1972, and Pete was for a long period the national industrial organiser of
the CP and was even nominated as the general-secretary of the Party, I
understand. To my knowledge these matters have not been investigated even
though the minutes of the EC of the party have been available for some time.
This is a matter for some of the most experienced historians of the movement
such as John Callaghan, Francis King , Willie Thompson or Kevin Morgan. It
would be better that an authentic life of Pete Carter is written while he is
still among us and not, as was the case with Monty Johnstone after he has
departed this life.
.
>

—– Original Message —–
From: “George Barnsby”
To: “Barnsby Daily Blog”
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 10:24 PM
Subject: GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG MONDAY 25TH FEBRUARY 2008
www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk

> DAY EIGHT OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
> On the eighth day when the world belongs to us ‘common’ people and
> the warmongers such as Bush, Blair, Gordon Brown and their Neo-Con cohorts
> in the US and New Labour adherents in Britain are bereft of either
> reputation or money, it is essential that those who refuse to reply to my
> communications are brought to book.
> Chief among these is Sir Trevor Phillips, darling of New Labour, but
> considered by many of us as unfit to represent ethnic minority people
> because of his support of the war in Iraq. But still he evades his
> constitutional duty to reply to those who address him.
> Then there are the great lords of the press Jeremy Paxman, Andrew
> Marr, Kirsty Wark, Jon Snow and Martha Kearney accused of not challenging
> Blair when interviewing him on the war in Iraq, thus allowing Blair to
> support Bush and themselves becoming accessories after the fact and by not
> replying to my charges on almost 50 occasions now have deprived this
> country
> of a main democratic tool which distinguishes us from dictatorships.
>
> WHO KNOWS OF GEORGE BARNSBY?
> No, this is not an ego trip. It is the next necessary step to make
> those who neglect their duty to respond to correspondence (particularly
> mine) and also gives me a chance to ask questions instead of having to dig
> out the information for myself. For instance I have so far used it to
> enquire for information regarding Angela Davies the black Communist,
> leader
> of the struggle against the McCarthy terror in the US, to enquire about my
> friend Norman Plotkin who I met in Burma during World War II, Steve
> Parsons
> last heard of living in Denmark who bought a copy of my autobiography,
> ‘Subversive or one third of the Autobiography of a Communist’, George
> Shearing the great blind jazz pianist who was born in Battersea, London
> the
> same year as myself, 1919 who I knew before the war. He is not well enough
> to return to England and I am most anxious to have information regarding
> his
> health and whether he is recording any music.
> Then there are more shadowy figures, Rick Trainor, for instance. I
> believe I know Rick and he probably remembers me. He is a social historian
> and will give a lecture at Wolverhampton University on February 27.
> Unfortunately there is no way I can attend the lecture because of my
> health.
> I hope I can get him to contact me.
>
> THE GROWTH OF COMMUNISM.
> After yesterday’s news that Fidel Castro’s brother Raul has been
> elected president of Cuba with Fidel having some say in matters this puts
> to rest any possibility that US Neo-cons and Brownite New Labour have of
> returning Cuba to the capitalist fold on the death of Fidel.
> Now there is further evidence of the growth of Communism as Cyprus
> elects it first Communist president, Demetris Christofias, who at once
> expresses his solidarity with Cuba and Castro. India already has two
> Communist governments one in the north and the other in the south with
> active movements elsewhere. Chavez and Mores represent the new Socialism
> of indigenous Bolivar and Marxist type. Recently the Communist Party of
> Britain under its International Secretary John Foster had meetings with
> the Communist Party of China and, although the situation there is very
> complex ranging from ex-imperialist elements in Hong Kong, vigorous local
> develop in towns such as Shanghai to further growth in the countryside
> where communal and collective agriculture jostles with individual farming
> as the headlong economic development of China continues. The CPB issued a
> report from their visit. Is this report still available?
> More than this, there was a meeting of all Workers and Communist
> Parties in the world which the CPB attended some months back and there was
> a full report published is that report still available? No doubt coming
> weeks will bring evidence of the activity of Communist parties elsewhere,
> not least in Indonesia where Sukhano and his thugs with the active support
> of US, British and Dutch imperialism slaughtered 1 million Communists and
> progressive. Sorry to disappoint the world’s anti-Communists, but it looks
> as if we shall go from strength to strength as the only alternative to the
> self destruction of Capitalism
>
>
>

DAY EIGHT OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
On the eighth day when the world belongs to us ‘common’ people and
the warmongers such as Bush, Blair, Gordon Brown and their Neo-Con cohorts
in the US and New Labour adherents in Britain are bereft of either
reputation or money, it is essential that those who refuse to reply to my
communications are brought to book.
Chief among these is Sir Trevor Phillips, darling of New Labour, but
considered by many of us as unfit to represent ethnic minority people
because of his support of the war in Iraq. But still he evades his
constitutional duty to reply to those who address him.
Then there are the great lords of the press Jeremy Paxman, Andrew
Marr, Kirsty Wark, Jon Snow and Martha Kearney accused of not challenging
Blair when interviewing him on the war in Iraq, thus allowing Blair to
support Bush and themselves becoming accessories after the fact and by not
replying to my charges on almost 50 occasions now have deprived this country
of a main democratic tool which distinguishes us from dictatorships.

WHO KNOWS OF GEORGE BARNSBY?
No, this is not an ego trip. It is the next necessary step to make
those who neglect their duty to respond to correspondence (particularly
mine) and also gives me a chance to ask questions instead of having to dig
out the information for myself. For instance I have so far used it to
enquire for information regarding Angela Davies the black Communist, leader
of the struggle against the McCarthy terror in the US, to enquire about my
friend Norman Plotkin who I met in Burma during World War II, Steve Parsons
last heard of living in Denmark who bought a copy of my autobiography,
‘Subversive or one third of the Autobiography of a Communist’, George
Shearing the great blind jazz pianist who was born in Battersea, London the
same year as myself, 1919 who I knew before the war. He is not well enough
to return to England and I am most anxious to have information regarding his
health and whether he is recording any music.
Then there are more shadowy figures, Rick Trainor, for instance. I
believe I know Rick and he probably remembers me. He is a social historian
and will give a lecture at Wolverhampton University on February 27.
Unfortunately there is no way I can attend the lecture because of my health.
I hope I can get him to contact me.

THE GROWTH OF COMMUNISM.
After yesterday’s news that Fidel Castro’s brother Raul has been
elected president of Cuba with Fidel having some say in matters this puts to
rest any possibility that US Neo-cons and Brownite New Labour have of
returning Cuba to the capitalist fold on the death of Fidel.
Now there is further evidence of the growth of Communism as Cyprus
elects it first Communist president, Demetris Christofias, who at once
expresses his solidarity with Cuba and Castro. India already has two
Communist governments one in the north and the other in the south with
active movements elsewhere. Chavez and Mores represent the new Socialism of
indigenous Bolivar and Marxist type. Recently the Communist Party of Britain
under its International Secretary John Foster had meetings with the
Communist Party of China and, although the situation there is very complex
ranging from ex-imperialist elements in Hong Kong, vigorous local develop in
towns such as Shanghai to further growth in the countryside where communal
and collective agriculture jostles with individual farming as the headlong
economic development of China continues. The CPB issued a report from their
visit. Is this report still available?
More than this, there was a meeting of all Workers and Communist
Parties in the world which the CPB attended some months back and there was a
full report published is that report still available? No doubt coming weeks
will bring evidence of the activity of Communist parties elsewhere, not
least in Indonesia where Sukhano and his thugs with the active support of
US, British and Dutch imperialism slaughtered 1 million Communists and
progressive. Sorry to disappoint the world’s anti-Communists, but it looks
as if we shall go from strength to strength as the only alternative to the
self destruction of Capitalism

—– Original Message —–
From: “George Barnsby”
To: “George Barnsby”
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 9:34 PM
Subject: GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG SUNDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2008
www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk

> DAY SEVEN OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
> Yesterday I received a very welcome contribution to the history of the
> Labour Party from Mary Garner. Mary was the wife of Alan Garner ex-Labour
> councillor deceased and his identical twin brother Ray also deceased born
> on
> 5 June 1929 at the Bath Road Nursing Home, Wolverhampton. All were from
> the
> Socialist wing of the Labour Party and Mary herself was maid of all work
> in
> the house they occupied at 37 Wanderers Avenue, Wolverhampton. Mary’s
> piece
> tells the history of the Garner twins from their birth to their deaths in
> the 1990s. Both the Garner twins joined the Young Communist League at
> various times in their lives and lived near George and Esme Barnsby with
> whom we were all friends for many years.
> My first thought on receiving Mary’s contribution was to ask her
> whether it might not be better of this were dealt with by Labour
> Councillor
> John Rowley, who has written a considerable amount on Wolverhampton Labour
> History and acquired the status of unofficial historian of W’ton Labour
> Party. Mary agreed that a copy be sent to John and we shall see what he
> does
> about it. In the mean time the manuscript is safe in the George Barnsby
> Working Class Library and Free Communist Bookshop and the existence of the
> MS will be made known to all those interested in Labour history. These
> include Graham Stevenson the Transport and General Workers’ Union activist
> who has a collection of hundreds of Labour biographies, our own
> Wolverhampton archives under David Bishop now moving into its new HQs at
> Molineux House, Carl Chinn that magnificent historian of Birmingham and
> the
> Black Country, Ned William of almost equal status and others.
>
> FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF ENOCH POWELL’S ‘RIVERS OF BLOOD’ SPEECH.
> Today the Observer commemorates 50 years since Powell’s infamous speech
> and attempts to make contact with those who opposed Powell back in 1968.
> The most important was Lance Dunkley, leader of the African-Caribbean
> community at the time, unfortunately he is named Lance Bunkley. Lance
> minces no words. ‘Powell was a psychopathic escapist with megalomiac
> tendencies’, and this about sums him up for many of us who have spent our
> lives fighting racism and fascism. Lance lived in the same road as Powell.
> ‘He had to pass my house to get to town, but he always walked on his side
> of the road, never mine’ he recalls. Lance was in 1969 as he is still in
> 2008 the leader of the African-Caribbean community in Wolverhampton.
> Leading the Indian community in 1969 was Naranjan Singh Noor (known
> universally as Mr.Noor), leader of the national Indian Workers’
> Association of his day. They had to bear the brunt of the hostility and
> violence generated against ethnic minority people by Powell’s impudence
> and stupidity. The most important white organisation of the time opposing
> Powell in Wolverhampton was the Communist Party of which I had the honour
> to be secretary from 1954 when Esme and I moved to Wolverhampton from
> London until I was 63 and had to retire on account of an irregular heart
> beat. During these days Lance, Mr.Noor and I constituted a triumvirate
> engaged continuously in struggle against racism and some of those
> campaigns deserve to be recorded again. For instance Ernie Rhoden, a
> person of some experience in colonial countries was appointed headmaster
> of a crack pot scheme by the then Tory controlled administration to build
> a school named the Grove to which all ethnic minority children would be
> bussed. This created a national scandal which was increased when he
> invited Enoch Powell to open the school! Rhoden continued to be racist and
> provocative when he forbad the wearing of turbans in school by Sikh
> children. Rhoden later provoked Mr.Noor to call him a racist and at a
> subsequent trial with probably an all white jury Rhoden was granted many
> tens of thousands of pounds damages which neither Mr.Noor or the IWA were
> able to afford.
> Mr.Noor suffered a break down in health. He later became a lecturer at
> Bilston Community College, where he became an important link in the first
> multicultural college in Britain with over one third ethnic minority staff
> while elsewhere black staff were virtually unknown. The story of the
> illegality of the closure of BCC is current history as we await papers
> obtained from the Security of Information Act.
>
FOOTBALL AND PATRIOTISM.
Football in Britain continues to attract the widest attention, even
though the question of ownership of clubs by US and other foreigners appears
to be less concern to players and spectators alike than results on the
field. Today we have had the spectacle of both teams in the Carling Cup
being owned by foreigners and no one turning a hair. Yesterday the
Premiership match between Birmingham and Arsenal resulted in one of the
worst injuries ever seen in Britain as Eduardo da Silva appears to have
compound fractures of both his tibia and fibular, injuries which could be
career threatening. Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager lost his rag and
declared that Martin Taylor the Birmingham player who caused the injury to
da Silva should never again be allowed to play football, a judgement which
he subsequently rescinded.
Yet Arsene Wenger remains perhaps the most important figure in British
football with his controversial policy of believing that British teams
(particularly its international side) should be owned by Britons while
insisting on playing teams of almost exclusively foreign extraction on the
plea that it is his job to produce the best team in the world for Arsenal
and its fans.
Like everything else in the world football is controlled by politics and
the Emirates financing Arsenal are at the reactionary end of politics,
supporting as they do George W.Bush and his racist and unwinnable wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
But Arsenal, the one team whose board insists that it should be British
controlled is now in grave danger of falling into foreign hands through the
back door. as Alisher Usmanov the steel magnate who became Arsenals’s
largest shareholder as he bought the holdings of David Dein last year and
the possibility of Usmanov being offered a seat on the board becomes a
reality. The reason? Arsenal is not only the most successful club in
Britain, but it is now the most profitable. As profits of Manchester United,
Chelsea and other premiership clubs droop (and the clubs themselves could
disappear if a slump on the 1930s scale appears) This is not a danger for
Arsenal who made a pre-tax profit of ?20 million in the six months to
November 2007, up ?3.4million more from profits made in the same six months
to 2006. Arsene Wenger insists that his priority is keeping his current
squad together and since they sit on top of the Premiership tonight with a
lead of three points Wenger says that Arsenal not only have no problems, but
also a large pot of gold to purchase players if necessary.
So those who put their filthy lucre into Premiership clubs to make
money, whether it be the Glazers of Manchester United, the Chelsea oligarch,
Liverpool, Manchester City, West Ham, Aston Villa or any other - lay off Arsenal, we are
not for sale to foreigners, we will do it the patriotic way.

GEORGE BARNSBY
76 years as Arsenal fan 56 years a Wolves supporter

DAY SIX OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
Today’s MORNING STAR is remarkable for two things. First it introduces
us to a remarkable piece by George Galloway MP. Secondly, that George has
had the privilege of personally knowing that unique figure who has straddled
the past half century as a colossus, Fidel Castro. Neither Fidel Castro nor
George Galloway are being treated with the respect due to them by most of
the world’s press who are only too ready to imagine that as Fidel retires,
Cuba must once again revert to the US imperialists from which Castro rescued
it in 1959. Cuba’s children live longer than those of the USA; illiteracy is
non-existent thanks to a free education system with unprecedented numbers of
graduates and PhDs. Cuba is the only country in the Third World of which
this can be said.
Cuba harvests gold medals in the Olympic Games which leave countries
like our own standing. Ordinary workers thrill to the ballet, opera and
music scene
which positively throbs. None of this could have happened without the
revolution, which in turn could never have happened without Fidel.
Galloway goes on to say that he is the most charismatic figure he has
ever met, an inspirational orator, and an oracle of politics in the second
half of the 20th century. But he is also a listener as well. He was above
all else an internationalist leader as was his comrades Che Guevara who
fought in Africa and was murdered in Bolivia.
Cuba played such a decisive role in the fall of South African apartheid
that after his release from prison Nelson Mandela chose to visit Havana
before anywhere else.
Galloway also demonstrates his great shrewdness on the question of
Miami and the Cubans there by pointing out that the bordello owners and
casino kings who left the island in 1959 have maintained a steady opposition
to Castro ever since. They want their dirty businesses back!
It is clear that George Galloway is almost as important a figure as
his great hero Fidel, being Respect MP for Bethnal Green and the foremost
figure in the fight against Bush and his Neo-cons and Blair and Gordon Brown
and his New Labour cohorts here in Britain.

WHO KNOWS GEORGE BARNSBY?
The boot is now on the other foot. It is no longer a question of my
demonstrating who I know, but of others telling me whether they know of me.
In recent BLOGS I have enquired about the whereabouts of Angela Davies, my
friend Norman Plotkin and others. Does the present Mayor of Wolverhampton
and her escort know me? Or the very many people who do not reply to my
communications know me? An important present current person is Professor
Rick Trainor, the principal of King’s College London who is to lecture at
W’ton University on February 27. There is no way I can attend the lecture,
so I must ask Rick if we have met in the past and what were the
circumstances? As we are now at a week-end and those who know me will want
to relax we will wait until Monday before pursuing this matter.

DAY FIVE OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
As George.W.Bush, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and all brands of Neo-Cons
and New Labourites continue their deliberate massacre of human beings
without being conscious that they no longer have either power or cash to
sustain their pretensions, I have spent much of today accepting by letter
and email messages from those who agree with me and sending messages to
trade unionists and others who will build the multicultural world of the
future. So that the New Statesman Trade Union Guide of 2007 will be replaced
by the current guide of 2008 and also other sources such as Housemans Peace
Diary 2008 whose World Peace Directory links us up with world trade unionism
and other progressive organisations throughout the world.
Equally important is the economic situation which blows sometimes hot
and sometimes cold, but where the ultimate fear is of a 1930s type slump
which would end capitalism as we know it . To prevent this we need the
experience of those who have successfully read the runes and not the silly
billies such as Gordon Brown who now have neither cash nor reputation to
play with. For me these experts include our local man the governor of the
Bank of England, Mervyn King, as well as economists William Keegan of the
Observer, Larry Elliott of the Guardian and various other radical economists
from such publications as the Socialist Economists of Britain.

NIGEL HASTILOW AND PETER RHODES ON EXPRESS AND STAR WEB SITE
www.expressandstar.co.uk
There are no commentators as astute and experienced as Hastilow and
Rhodes. Go to their website. I hope you get more out of it than I did as it
seems out of date to me. However from their columns tonight its clear that
both fully understand the duplicity of those who think that the sums of
money allegedly available to ‘regenerate’ either Birmingham or Wolverhampton
are phantom sums. The reason is that there’s not enough tracks and the 4
‘major funding authorities’ will have to think the unthinkable and build a
second mail line station in Birmingham. But even the ?800 million necessary
to complete this is liable to be completely wasted as the West Midlands are
bypassed by a high speed line from London to Manchester which misses out the
midlands altogether. As Nigel pithily remarks, ‘Glass roofs and nice
escalators are just not enough!’

A HISTORY OF W’TON, BILSTON AND DISTRICT TUC COUNCIL 1865-1990 BY GEORGE
J.BARNSBY.
This from the ‘freebie’ Wolverhampton Chronicle of this week. ‘Memory
Lane’ by Andrew Turton. It summarises from cover to cover my book from the
first ever 40 hour week agreement signed at Manders paint works
Wolverhampton by Ernest Bevin leader of the Transport and General Workers’
Union and Harry Bagley W’ton Trades’ Council leader.
It passes on to the General Strike of 1926 in which Wolverhampton
workers played a prominent
part, but was also the scene of an unsuccessful attempt to end the strike,
led by the then ’scab’ newspaper the Express and Star. Other incidents
follow, the TUC Glasgow to London ‘Peoples March for Jobs in 1983 which
passed through Wolverhampton; the opening of the Trades Union Education
Centre at Springvale by the TUC general secretary Norman Willis; a splendid
solidarity episode of staff and prisoners at Featherstone Prison in 1993 who
made a new banner for Wolverhampton Trades Council and inaugurated a period
of solidarity between Prisoners and Staff of the prison and the general
public, which is sorely missed today.

ANTI-ACADEMIES ALLIANCE.
Closely associated with the previous item is the current secretary of
W’ton TUC, Nick Kelleher’s email asking all his contacts to circularise news
of an anti-academies conference taking place on Saturday 8th March 2008 at
Congress House, home of the TUC, Great Russell St. London WC1B 3LS from
10-30am to 3-30pm. Speakers include Francis Beckett, Fiona Millar, a very
welcome appearance by Ken Purchase Wolverhampton MP who has been suspected
of selling his safe seat to Drombey, husband of Harriett Harman and thus
supporting New Labour instead of traditional Labour. Other speakers will be
John Cruddas MP, Frank Dobson MP, Christina McAnea (Unison head of
Education), dear old Tony Benn and representatives from the TUC, ATL,
NASUWT, NUT and Unison.
The main text of the leaflet states that England has seen a growth in
academies and potential academies which challenges public control, public
accountability, trade union rights, trade union recognition and terms of
conditions of employees. Academies challenge state provision of education
and hand over control to unelected bodies. This conference will be welcomed
by Wolverhampton activists where pro-Academies activity has been
particularly active in the form of Lord Adonis and also, it appears, the
management body of Wolverhampton University under the new Vice-Chancellor, Caroline Gipps.
Two new pamphlets have also been prepared to support the Conference,
namely, Report on the MPs Committee of Enquiry into Academies and Trust
Schools, and We Pay the Piper - They Call the Tune. Francis Beckett has
written the latter pamphlet and he believes that the Specialist Schools and
Academies Trust is probably the most powerful organisation in British
Education today. The reports cost ?3 each or ?5 for both available on-line
at www.antiacademies.org.uk
This Conference deserves the support of the whole progressive
education industry in Britain, not least the Black and Asia Studies
Association and the Socialist Educational Association whose issue of
Education Politics of December 2007 is particularly fascinating.

DAY FIVE OF THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
As Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, New Labourites, George W.Bush and other
warmongers take such sleep as they can, the evidence against them continues
to pile up. Today David Miliband, the foreign secretary, apologises to the
country for not believing that ‘rendition’ flights by the US took place in
Britain. But the buck stops with Gordon Brown and the others are accessories
to the crime of mass murder instigated by Bush, Blair and Gordon Brown.
Today we not only have Fidel Castro reporting in Granma, but also Cuba
Si the official journal of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign protesting at US
continuing efforts both to murder Castro and misrepresent the 10% plus per
annum economic advance being made as well as the large numbers of medical
personnel and Cuba’s leadership of the campaign to eradicate illiteracy
which enables Cuba to send abroad very large numbers of such personnel and
makes Cuba’s life expectancy exceed that of the west. Also calling for the
end of the blockade against Cuba, now supported by very few countries in the
world.
We also draw attention today to one of the great feminist heroes of our
time , namely Angela Davies the US Communist connected both politically and
musically with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
We must also mention the nationalisation of Northern Rock which our
local man at the Bank of England, Mervyn King, will have to deal with, first
in its short
term aspect as to whether houses will sell or not and possibly the ultimate
question of whether there could be a 1930s slump in Britain and the USA
which would destroy capitalism itself.
I end with two further matters which Bush and his Neo-cons are
absolutely determined to raise, Kosova, certain to raise mayhem among all
non Kosovans and Darfur where one section of the population has slaughtered
the other, and the other is now happily taking revenge.
Oh what a terrible web they weave when warmongers set out to deceive
each other!