The Barnsby Blog

WHO DID I VOTE FOR IN THE MUNICIPAL ELECTION TODAY.
I declared from the outset that I would not vote for any candidate who
supports the war in Iraq. In my ward of Tettenhall Wighwick there were four
candidates standing, the three main parties and a man who wanted fathers to
be better regarded. I also had a letter in the local press announcing these
intentions. From this I immediately received a letter from the Liberal
Democrats which said they the were not only opposed to the war, but that
they had called on Rob Marris our MP to renounce the war.
So the other three candidates got a letter from me inviting them to the
home of an 89 year old Communist to explain whether they opposed the war or
not. The Labour candidate was an Indian Jagnandan Ghera who I had hopes
might oppose the war and the Conservative candidate was a sitting Councillor
, Joan Stevenson, whose two other Tory fellow councillors, Wendy Thompson
and Andrew Wynne are both opposed to the war .
However none of the three replied to me. So for the first time in my
life I voted Liberal Democrat, and would be happy to work with her in the
unlikely event of her beating both the Conservatives and Labour candidates.

THE FUTURE OF WOLVERHAMPTON EYE INFIRMANRY..
An email has gone to Roger Lawrence, the leader of W’ton City Council,
and David Loughton chief executive of New Cross Hospital regarding present
plans to do away with the eyesore of a site at Compton and develop it. It
states that this is a splendid idea which this BLOG has advocated for some
time, but to include the Royal Wolverhampton Hospital Trust is fraught with
contradictions because it was David Loughton of the Hospital Trust who
closed the Eye Infirmary a couple of years ago and so let in St.Modwen’s
Property Developers who in turn found they had bitten off more than they
could chew. In fact I thought St.Modwen’s had bankrupted themselves, but
this seem to not have been the case since St.Modwen’s is a vast property
enterprise which is financd by Arab capital and unless it is bankrupted by
an economic slump it will have to be all those who suffer from thsi propery
monolith. These include besides Dudley where St.Modwen’s were having
problems building on the famous Dudley Castle site, but also in East London
campaigners trying to save Qneen’s Market which they say is the most
ethnically diverse market in Britain; Bognor Regis where protesters want to
preserve the main landmarks in the town; Farnborough; a hugely controversial
scheme in Wales and we have today been told of a campaign in Walthamstow
to Fight the Height, which is a plan to build 18 storey high buildings in
the area.
Wolverhampton’s campaign to save the Eye incuded a large petition and
if the city is prepared to initiate a campaign to save our Eye Infirmary
then it should act as an example to these other St.Modwen victims and the
addition of the local NHS Trust in Wolverhampton prepared to put money in
the kitty would also set a splendid example, once it is purged of its chief
executive, David Loughton.

WOLVERHAMPTON BRANCH OF THE BURMA STAR ASSOCIATION.
As one of those who served for nearly four years in Burma and India
during World War Two I have been most anxious to contact Mrs.McGhee the
Wolverhampton secretary. She tells me of the monthly meeting at the United
Services Club on the last Friday of each month from noon until about 3pm. So
the next meeting is on the 30th of May, and I am negotiating with my pal Joe
Davies who lives down the road who is not a Burma man,, but was in the air
borne services, if he is able to take me.
I was interested to learn from Mrs.McGhee that the Wolverhampton branch
is trying to get a written archive together and besides honouring the
Kohima Epithet, two members are trying to prepare a plaque on the war. The
United Services club which houses many of the ex-service men and women
organisations has recently been bought by a property developer and there is
little doubt that demolition of the building and its ultimate replacement
with houses and other properties would be a profitable proposition, but he
shows no sign of wishing to eject the remaining ex-service organisations of
which there are quite a number still in Wolverhampton. And it is also quite
an imposing building which might merit listing and preservation particularly
as the centre of Burma and Kohima remembrance.
My immediate concern is to see that two people I associated with are
properly honoured for posterity. One was the father of CND chairperson
(Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ), Kate Hudson, John deceased and also
George Johnson
also deceased, but who I knew for many years as a fellow member of the
Communist Party and who described to me in vivid detail the all-pervading
stench of dead bodies of people and animals which he could never forget.

LABOUR HERITAGE.
In last night’s BLOG I asked Francis King who lives in East Anglia, who
is a noted historian of the working class movement in Britain whether he
could find anything about
the later life of Harold Quinton and his wife Gladys. Harold had been a
local Braintree Communist councillor in the brief period after World War Two
when the Soviet Union was respected as the country which had sacrificed most
and had done most to defeat German and European fascism and would have done
even more if it had joined in the war against Japan after the defeat of the
Germans as laid down by the
Potsdam Treaty.
But this was deliberately forestalled by the US dropping atom bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki without
consulting its two main allies, Russia and Britain and was quickly followed
by Japan’s surrender. This was the beginning of the Cold War officially
declared open by Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech and which Attlee and
the Labour government disgracefully joined soon after.
Today I received a copy of Labour Heritage with a long article on the
Witham Labour League of Youth. Witham is a small rural town in mid-Essex
where one wouldn’t expect to find a lively branch of the LLY. But there was
a labour history there going back to the early 1900s. Secondly the Crittall
Metal Windows Co. had been established in the early nineteenth century and
one of their factories was at Witham.
In the 1923 general election Val Crittall, who was later to become Lord
Braintree had won the seat for
Labour. To other factors were a busy railway junction with strong National
Union of Railwaymen support and also the Co-op was big in the town. Also
this was
the period of the first Labour government and Tom Driberg was the MP for
Malden
division, a most influential man who had significantly won the seat during
the war when there was a political truce between Labour and the Tories.
Driberg won it as a left-wing Independent in 1942 and won it again in 1945
as Labour.
Driberg’s influence was enormous from 1942 and it was in this
atmosphere that Harold Quinton was elected as a Communist after the war.
Driberg was a homosexual and if he had been found out he would have been
imprisoned. His sexuality was an open secret in the House of Commons but he
kept his open secret by threatening to expose other homosexuals in the House
if they dared expose him.
Driberg was a journalist, the original William Hickey of the Daily
Express, was friendly with Lady Astor’s Cliveden set, was chair of the
Labour Party in 1957-8. In 1965 he was appointed Privy Counsellor. He became
a Life Peer as Baron Bradwell of Bradwell-juxta-Mare.
A remarkable man who had some influence on the growth of the Witham
Labour League of Youth and knowing the penchant of young people to associate
with Young Communist Leaguers whereas their seniors were usually right-wing
desperately trying to ward off Communist influence we can now offer Labour
Party activists such as Ted Mawdsley to Francis King as allies in the search
for the later life of Harold and Gladys Quinton.

TRUCK GORDON BROWN.
That was the message of truckers on strike demanding that Gordon Brown
lowers the price of petrol and stops acquiring vast revenues in tax which he
spends on benefiting the rich instead of the poor. Five days to go polling
day and I have still not heard from my Labour candidate whether he supports
the war in Iraq or not. If he doesn’t reply I shall assume he supports the
war and vote for my Lib-Dem candidate who tells me that not only has she and
her party always opposed the war, but they have requested that Rob Marris
our MP shall cease supporting the war.
This is the same Rob Marris who was in court today charged with causing
almost ?350 worth of damage to a parked van by allegedly clambering over its
bonnet to board a bus in Jeffcock Road quite a distance from the City
centre where you expect to find police and traffic wardens. Rob is quite a
decent chap with whom I would like to remain friends, but he does seem
rather accident prone in taking wrong decisions, whether they be acrobatic
ones or political ones like support for the war in Iraq.

HAS A THAW BEGUN?
We are very happy to report a communication from Roger Lawrence, the
leader of the Wolverhampton City Council. It reads as follows: ‘We are aware
of the difficulties with REP since its relaunch in terms of staffing. We are
currently in discussions with the REP Management Committee about whether
they are able to fulfil their service level agreements. These discussion are
being led by my colleague Cllr Elias Mattu. They are necessarily complex but
I will inform you of any outcomes’.
We are very happy to have received a message from Roger Lawrence as he
is the first person in the city council who has replied to me and I hope
this is a beginning to a normal and civilised relationship in which
questions are asked and answers given
But there is a snag to this rather cryptic message given . I thought at
first the REP Committee was a council one, but an exhaustive search on the
city website has failed to produce any results, so I must now conclude that
REP is one of the multitudinous ‘regeneration’ bodies which they believe
have been given a crock of gold to improve the City. Unfortunately if one
has the money it must be at the expense of the other and this has led to
legislation threats which have now been withdrawn it seems and is the crux
of my enquiry to the chief executive of the council, Richard Carr, of Who
Runs Wolverhampton? At the moment Mr. Carr stubbornly refuses to contact me
and answer my question, so I shall have to pass this question back to Roger
Lawrence and ask him to explain what this message means.

OTHER QUESTIONS UNANSWERED.
One of the most important needs of Wolverhampton is to have its own
series of Statistics as it used to have before Sir Trevor Phillips was
foolish enough to close the Wolverhampton Race Equality Council. The new
alternative Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton, which Roger Lawrence
must have played a key role in setting up when the Council disagreed with
Trevor Phillips and ring-fenced certain funds to set up this alternative
body REPW. Unfortunately the present body is unacceptable to the black
communities as not representing their interests as well as undemocratic. Few
people know of its existence. It has premises but no functioning staff. It
appears to be a typical New Labour organisation and Wolverhampton has been
without a functioning Race Equality Unit since 2005.
Particularly important has been racism in Education which, from the
lack of local statistics does not allow us to know the extend that Racism
continues to exist in our Schools and its playgrounds Schools have given
themselves fancy names such as Sport, Community, Business etc. with the
basic aim, it appears, to enlarge their catchment area to the whole city and
even beyond , and they refuse to divulge details of their budgets or even
their curriculum to enable the public to judge whether they are ‘fit for
purpose’ in a multicultural Wolverhampton The minimal amount of local
material we need is as follows: What are your selection procedures; what is
the ethnic profile of pupils; what is the ethnic profile of staff; how many
pupils are on free school dinners; what was the budget of the school in the
past financial year; who provides the financial resources to the school. To
monitor and improve on these indices we suggest the appointment of a Race
Equality teacher; that the syllabus, particularly the history syllabus be
published. On all these matters, the Department for Education is
deliberately hostile and it is here at the top, including the Civil
Servants, where Racism is rife. Yet all the suggested information could be
easily obtained if the local education committee and its inspectors had the
support of the City council in requiring such data.

BURMA STAR ASSOCIATION.
Having not been able to find the name and adress of the local secretary
of the Wolverehampton Burma Star Association we have now Googled and found
an adress and phone number for the National Association. They live at 4
Lower Belgrave St. London SW1W 0LA Tele: 020 7823 4273. We shall contact
them tomorrow to see whether they can provide us with an address of the
local association secretary.

Its
been a
topsy-turvey time since I sent last night’s Blog No.438 debunking Fred
the Tramp in the green tent on the Wolverhampton ringroad, as a member of the Waffen SS. I also lamented the
death of Humphrey Lyttelton as one who could have helped with the replication
of the programmes that we members of the Furthest East Rhythm Club in the World
at Imphal, Burma, in the Second World War made.
But this morning, before beingtaken by my No.2. son William to the Harp for a couple of hours jazz. I opened yesterday’s letters which I had neglected and found two of them
appealing for members to play an active part in developing activities. The first was
the Bulletin of the of the Wolverhampton History and Heritage Society called
Wufruna which all members of the Committee know I criticise as not being a
beneficiary of the city, but the woman who took a gift she was not
entitled to receive, namely the whole of Wolverhampton, from a man not
entitled to give it namely the King of Wessex, and thus began class warfare
in Britain, because the land previously under Anglo-Saxon law had belonged
to the people and could not be sold. Frank Sharman the present secretary
of the Society who has recently been on a tour which took him to India was
thoughtful enough to point than In Kerala there was a Communist government where
literacy rates and the general standard of living was higher than in
non-Communist partsof India. I am an honorary member of the committee of the History and
Heritage Society, so if Frank wants news of working people he knows where to
come.
The latest edition of Wulfruna has material taken from the
archivesand much of it covers matters this BLOG has for
long argued about. Take Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary. Frank
Sharman writes, ‘The buildings here are locally listed and certainly have great
local historic and architectural interest . Until mid-February it looked as if
they had been sold for development of flats. But the deal collapsed for
reasons unknown and the property is back on the market. The longer the buildings
remain empty, the more they are at risk’. Frank should read my Blog
more often when he would have learned that the developers were St.Modwen
Construction Company which left the site because it was bankrupted.
Those who campaigned to save the site from the ravages of David Loughton, the chief executive of New Cross Hospital who was determined to move the Eye Infirmary from its Chapel Ash site to New Cross Hospital where the diseases of MRSA and Cdifficile were
rife, whereas the Eye Infirmary never had any example of these diseases and if
eye patients caught these diseases it was liable to be fatal.Among
those who campaigned to save the Eye Infirmary was Roy Stallard, the historian of
Wolverhampton Hospitals.The number of houses scheduled to be built could
only have been built by encroaching on the area of the listed building and we
have argued for the reopening of the Eye Hospital on its original site. We
also knew
that St.Modwen were in trouble at Dudley, where they were building
houses on the historic site of Dudley Castle. But our investigations went much further
when I was emailed by people in London’s east end who were resisting
St.Modwen’s depredations and we were joined by others in Bognor and Wales. We
learned that St.Modwen’s were financed with Arab money. So here is a real
mystery and we urge the City council tofind the money to save our Eye
Infirmary. Frank Sharman also
raises the question of the Summer Row development where the company
which owns
the Wulfrun Centre had started an action in the High Court to get the
Secretary
of State to confirm a compulsory purchase order invalid. This law suit
has nowbeen abandoned it seems;but this cannot alter the fact that both
parties tothe dispute have been offered vast sums of money to develop the city and
if one is satisfied it must be at the expense of the other. Both the Financial
Timesand Sharman also raise the question of all parties being bankrupted in
the eventof an economic crisis like that of the 1930s and pinpoints the fact that
GordonBrown has shot his bolt and has neither the finance nor the prestige to
carryout these vast schemes and questions whether Brown has any
future Yet both Roger Lawrence and the chief executive of the council Richard Carr refuse to
answer myquestion Who runs Wolverhampton despite the fact that he is apparently paid
£120,000 for doing whatever he does. And what has happened to those
otherdevelopers such as Stephen Catchpole who only two months ago said that
he was so proud to have been appointed the regenerator of
Wolverhampton.
The fact that Richard Carr refuses to reply to me, despite his obligation to do so, is
liable to lead him into trouble with the law, for millions of pounds of
taxpayers and Council tax payer’s money is at stake and our citizens must know
who is spending the money and on what.

THE SOCIALIST HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER APRIL 2
This is the second organisation I belong to publishing masses of material
and calling for help. Francis King ask for Occasional Papers, and I can’t hel[
asking him if he has made any progress through East Aglian sources of
finding more about the later activities of Harold Quinton, a member of the then
East Anglian District Committee and to whose house in Braintree I used
to bring a number of soldiers for meetings. I was friendly with his daughter Dot
who upbraided me after I had been drafted to a secret war time destination
which turned out to be India and Burma where I spent nearly four years. Dot
believed that I would marry her, whereas I had no intention whatever of
marrying anyone and possibly leaving a widow and fatherless children if I
was killed. Dot in a huff married a policemen and as far as I know
dropped any
kind of politics. Whether she and her brother could be traced to let us
know more about Harold’s later life or that of his wife, Gladys who so generously
gavethe family’s food coupons to feed ravenous soldiers was
something that I asked Francis King to investigate since he lives in
EastAnglia.
Eddie Dare the SHS newsletter also knows about the George Barnsby Blog and
Free Communist Bookshop which is now coming up to 450 issues and is a very
large collection of local and national labour history and anti racist fascist history.This contains the material for the second and third part of my autobiography which is entitled, ‘Subversive; One third of the Autobiography of a Communist’.
Perhaps someone would care to comment on whether my
soldiers’ paper which ran for half a dozen numbers entitled first Red Front
and then United Front which resulted in my being detached from my unit and
sent overseas was the first Soldiers’ Paper since the Levellers of the 17th
century Commonwealth period. Of course, we know that the paper had no immense
significance and we also know from one of our oldest members Brian
Pearce that papers of a Trotskyist nature were regularly sent to Stalin and
influenced his strategy of the war against Hitler. There were also important events
like theCairo parliament of 1943 and mutinies and RAF strikes after the war as
describedin Richard Kisch’s book The Days of the Good Soldiers,but none of these
seem to have produced an identifiable newspaper produced by an active soldier
I should be happy to learn whether there were other papers besides mine. So can we have some discussion?
THE DANIEL SMITH DUO.
But what made my day at
the Harp at
Albrighton was the Daniel Smith Duo. Smith had a great rappport with his
audience and is both a wonderful jazz pianist as well as being an
accomplished speaker. So I took the opportunity of informing him of the
Furthest East Rhythm Club in the world and asking if he would support us in
trying to get
our programmes replicated. He said he would, but to my utter
astonishment he then
said he came from an Indonesian background and his family had suffered
at the
hands of the Japanese and he suggested that there might have been a
rhythm club
further east than ours, in Indonesia. When I told him that all our
sessions a commentary and our paper records were at the Natinal Jazz Archive
at Loughton in Essex;he was full of
practical advice suggesting that our sessions should be turned into CDs which
might then
be taken up by military or civilian producers of programmes and be a
permanent record even if nobody replicated them. So my job now is to contact
HarryJohnson (the only other known survivor from the 150 members) and see
what we can arrange with the curator of the National Jazz Archives, David
Nathan.

FRED THE TRAMP ON THE WOLVERHAMPTON RING ROAD.
The tramp who has famously lived in a tent on Wolverhampton’s Ring Road
for more than 30 years has died. The body of 87 year old Josef Stawinoga
has been found who was affectionately known as Fred. A police cordon was put
round his
green tent and they confirmed that they were not treating his death as
suspicious. It is not known who made the discovery.
Council leader Roger Lawrence described it as ‘very sad news’.
Mr.Stawinoga was someone the community took to their hearts. He gained
everyone’s respect and the city’s social services provided him with a lot of
support in a way that was sensitive to his wishes. It did attract criticism
from outside the city, but he was not treated as a social problem.
Fred was originally from Poland, and few facts are know about him. He
was though to have been detained in a Russian prison camp during the Second
World War and came to Wolverhampton in the 1950s. He worked at Stewarts and
Lloyds steelwork in Bilston. The next his colleagues knew he was pushing a
pram with all his belongings and had grown an ankle length beard. Many
people have shown sympathy with Fred and some have suggested that part of
the ring road be named after him.
Unfortunately for those who are naive about Fred we do know that he
was a member of the Waffen SS who committed monstrous atrocities in Russia
and Poland and elsewhere who fled to the west where instead of being tried
for their crimes they were welcomed. Wolverhampton shared in this
disgraceful state of affairs and thousands of Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians
and Estonian were admitted to Wolverhampton without any check on their
previous record. Not a single one was prosecuted And so thousands of people
like Fred lived comparatively blameless lives and worked at Stewarts and
Lloyds or Goodyear’s, married English girls and have taken to the grave the
secret of the atrocities they committed.
But history has a long fuse and John Mellor, who by definition of
being an unreconstructed supporter of Enoch Powell, is a racist and received
honours from East European fascist governments. And now with East European
countries people able to migrate to Britain as members of the European Union
we
face the task of heading off the BNP at our polling booths next Thursday and
the need to know whether the present generation of East Europeans and their
descendents in our multicultural Wolverhampton have shed the burden of
racism and how many of them continue to support the racism which is still
rampant in the EU.

HUMPHREY LYTTELTON - R.I.P. THE CELESTIAL TRUMPETER IN THE SKY
Humphrey Lyttelton was more than a maestro for those of us who served
in Burma during the 2nd World War and belonged the Furthest East Rhythm
Club in the World at Imphal on the Burma border. This rhythm club which
existed for eighteen months in a combat area, had 150 members and kept in
detail and with humour records of every session by two RAF men Harry
Johnson and his greatest pal Ken Allsop . Its activities were interrupted
by the great Japanese offensive of 1944 intended to conquer India and join
up with Hitler. They were thwarted by the plan of Lord Louis Mountbatten
that we should stay in Imphal surrounded by the Japs and be supplied by air
for what was the largest operation of its time and lasted for three months.
So the rhythm club disappeared.
Some time after the war I was astonished to find Harry Johnson on my
door
step. He had been reading a book by a bloke called Barnsby and reckoning
that there could not be too many George Barnsbys in Wolverhampton he walked
over and we had a lovely reunion. We then set about trying to get our record
sessions replicated by modern disc jockies or small bands. Nothing much
came of these efforts and there the matter rested for nigh on 50 years when
the present interest in those who fought for our freedoms were resuscitated.
By then our records had been taken in by the Jazz Archive at Loughton,
in
Essex, and it was then that we came in contact with Humphrey Lyttelton in
more than admired trumpeter and his radio programme ‘I haven’t a Clue’ fame.
For
Humphrey was an important member of the Jazz Archives and we enlisted his
help to try to get our programmes duplicated. By now there were the only two
old
toothless codgers left of the original 50 members, Harry and me. Humph did
not manage to get our sessions repeated, but I remain convinced that with
the recent renewed interest in trad.jazz due in part to Humph’s example, we
can still get our sessions repeated before we both join Humph.

BURMA STAR ASSOCIATION.
We have now contacted Burma Star Association HQ in London. It might
seem a long way round to get hold of the address of the Wolverhampton
secretary, but since our previous efforts have so far produced only the
Chindits secretary in Wolverhampton this seems the only way left. We want to
bring up certain cases to be honoured, particularly the case of CND chair,
Kate Hudson, whose father fought at Kohima where some of the fiercest
fighting of any war front took place and we managed to get the Kohima
epithet recently installed at the Lich Gates, Wolverhampton next to
St.Peter’s Church which reads: When you go Home/ Tell them of us and say/For
your Tomorrow/We gave our Today.

THE LONDON SUICIDE BOMBERS,
The bombers believe that their religion and civilisation is under
attack, and in this they are correct as anyone who reads my good friend
Nasir Khan’s remarkable book, ‘Perceptions of Islam in the Christendoms,
showing that this has been the case since the eighth century; or anyone
who has watched recent TV programmes showing the glory and democracy of the
of the Muslim civilisations radiating from Constantinople; nor those who are
not foolish enough to believe that Western civilisation is the greatest gift
to the world even though it was debunked by the English historian AJP
Taylor more than 60 years ago; nor those who recall the words of that sage
cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury that even terrorists have their
principles.
Nor are these terrorists young and callow youths who need to be
corrected by their elders and betters. These men are mature family men
acting from the highest motive - that they should make the supreme sacrifice
of giving their own lives for the cause they believe in.
Nor should we cop out of the argument because we are British living in
a democratic country and therefore do not have to face the dilemma that
these terrorists face. we ourselves were once branded terrorists
when we cut off the head of Charles I and the democracy we possess today was
not granted by our upper classes but fought for by ordinary people and
has been quickly eroded by the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
There is an important school of thought which believes that all
important movements are started by terrorists. A case can be made that Jesus
was crucified because he refused to bow down before the might of the Roman
empire; certainly the founding fathers of the USA were rebels and
terrorists, as was Nelson Mandela in more modern times and on our own
doorstep the IRA just across the water.
What has to be recorded is that George W.Bush, Tony Blair and now
Gordon Brown are the most important terrorists in the world and if they
were put
under lock and key most of the causes of terrorism would disappear
overnight.

LABOUR BRIEFING AGM.
After the elections what next for Labour? a Labour Briefing AGM takes
place on Saturday 10th May 11am-4pm at University of London Union, Malet
Street, London. Speakers include John McDonnell MP, Tony Benn and Muslims
Discussion and analysis of the political situation following
the May elections, prospects for the Labour government and the struggle
against New Labour. Full discussion from the floor.

BEYOND THE MARKET ECONOMY - SOCIALIST SOLUTIONS FOR THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
There will be a conference on Saturday 24 May at Birkbeck College,
University of London, Malet St. London. Speakers John McDonnel MP and Tony
Benn.The Conference brings together economists, trade unionists, students
and campaigners to discuss: Securing housing for all ; Ending
corporate power, 21st century models of social ownership; Ending debt and
transforming the financial system; defending pay, pensions and jobs in a
global market economy.

NEW STATESMAN 28 APRIL WEEKLY UPDATE.
The workers are on the march again. Peter Wilby reports that more than
a million days were lost to industrial action last year and the total may be
higher this year. Also Jeremy Dear secretary of the National Union of
Journalists reflecting that today’s militants are not cowed by the defeats
the trade union movement suffered in the 1980s. Plus tales from the picket
lines.
From America US editor reflects on the ups and downs of the US battle
for the Democratic nomination to run for President, concluding that the
lawyers are likely to be the big winners in this contest.
A piece on Understanding the Taliban by Stephen Gray, while John Pilger
ponders the attack on democracy in Latin America.
Gordon Brown’s future. The Prime Minister’s authority is based on his
supposed economic competence and his knowing how to will elections. The
coming days will see this tested to the limit.
Tribute to Gwyneth Dunwoody against whom the wiles of Tony Blair crashed
and broke as harmlessly as a wave on a quay.
All this and much else is advertised for the Labour movement’s best
known weekly.

PETER RHODES INTERVIEWS GORDON BROWN.
Peter Rhodes the anti-war reporter of the Express and Star who has met
Brown only once before, brought all his journalistic experience to bear only
to find that Brown outwitted him in the end. I asked him whether this week
is the worst he has experienced in politics. After all, some of his less
loyal colleagues have compared this week with the final days of Margaret
Thatcher. Some of them look at the teachers’ strike, the Scottish refinery
strike and the collapsing house market and fear for their seats.
Some would be happy to see the Great Broom drive off al la Thatcher in
the ministerial Jag, weeping quietly to be reinvented with a fancy title in
the Other Place. Lord Dither of Blewit, perhaps? As though nothing had
happened in the week, he declares that he is thoroughly enjoying the job and
is here to enjoy all the good things going on in Wolverhampton such as, and
here he goes into his prepared spiel about Wolverhampton and education in
general. So Rhodes leaps in with his second question. Does he think he will
lead Labour into the next general election. Of course, he says. Is he
serious? Is he not aware that the latest poll puts the Tories 18 points
ahead in the sort of roll they have not had since the heyday of Thatcherism.
He is about to ask the obvious follow-up question Can you name a single
member of your Cabinet who wants you to lead them in the next election? But
he makes the mistake of pausing for a nanosecond and Brown is off on some
new eulogy about how investment has doubled in the past ten years. Next
question. Does he not wish he had become premier sooner when the economy was
booming and he could have achieved more. He sees this question as an
invitation to explain how magnificently the economy is doing now and how the
number of people in employment is going up at twice the rate of France and
Germany.
This raises a puzzling question, How does it come about that with
everything going so well and so much money flooding into your coffers, that
we must pay more tax. At this point he smiles and takes Rhodes chummily by
the arm. Thankfully he did not tell me how many millions of people he had
lifted out of poverty that morning. The problem with Brown is that instead
of avoiding straight answers to problems as most politicians do at times
Brown does it all the time. He sees it as controlling the discussion, but it
makes him look like a man out of control or in denial. As he drones on from
some endless script in his brain, some of us think, what a strange bloke
this is.
And consider this curious, unscripted ending. As the rest of the
press drift off, Brown is left with a single aide. Rhodes drifts over and
nods at the children in the next room Brown smiles again and for a time it
is one middle aged dad talking to another. And so man to man I ask him a
most simple question. Does a setting like this make him think of having more
children? He reacts as though I had slapped him in the face. How can you
ask me that? as though he had broken some unwritten rule. How can you ask me
that and walks away. What a very strange bloke this is.
We can all agree with that. But what is still more odd is how a decent
man, brought up on a Scottish manse could become a war monger, indifferent
to the deaths of millions and liable to be charged before the Court of Human
Rights with Crimes against Humanity.

TWO NEWCOMERS TO THE FAMILY OF SOCIALIST NATIONS.
Speak it quietly, not too many people know it, but the victory of
Fernando Lugo in Paraguay and the election of the first Communist president
in Cyprus must take us close to what that marvellous old Socialist,
Dr.Hewlett Johnson, the rebel red Dean of Canterbury, who I had the honour
to know called in his classic book,, The Socialist Sixth of the World. Not
only is virtually the whole of South America going red, but India has at
least two states which have Communist governments and probably more and
China which has strayed from the Socialist path since Mao’s Great Leap
forward, we hope will return to Socialism as it becomes due to take the
place of the US as the wealthiest country in the world.
It seems appropriate that I should be able to report to my good
friend Nasir Khan that I spent at least an hour last night reading Marx’s
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 until I fell asleep. Well it
was 1am!

ST.GEORGE’S DAY STILL NOT FOR ME.
I regret differing from my good comrade Billy Bragg in wishing to make
St.George a symbol of our Englishness, although I agree with him that we
need a separate symbol as the United Kingdom goes the way of the British
Empire and disintegrates as Scotland and Wales return to their old national
identities. I dealt with this most thoroughly in my Sunday BLOG No.432 and
will only add this today SOME ENGLISHMEN ARE GOOD, OTHERS INDIFFERENT AND
SOME ARE SO BAD THAT I WOULDN’T TOUCH THEM WITH A BARGEPOLE LET ALONE A
FLAGPOLE.

STAN NEWENS - AN HONORARY BLACK COUNTRY MAN.
When I heard that Bevin Boys (those who served in the Second World War
in the pits) were to be given a badge I contacted an old friend, Stan Newens
and asked him if he had got his. Stan is an anti-war man who has been both a
London MP and MEP and came in touch with Wolverhampton through meeting the
Garner twins Ray and Alan who were in the Labour League of Youth. Stan who
is now a member of the Socialist History Society committee in London
sometimes comes to Wolverhampton where he was one of the first people to
recognise the significance of my books on the Working Class Movement in
Birmingham and the Black Country. Alas , I got some of my facts wrong which
sometimes happens to an 89 year old who has suffered heart attacks and
strokes and Stan has put me right, and he becomes an even more Honourable
Citizen of the Black Country in my eyes. He writes as follows, ‘Although the
genuine Bevin boys are entitled to at award I was NOT one of them…I was
not old enough to fall into that category, anyway. In my case I was opposed
to the Korean War and opted to go into the mines for four years from 1952.
After training I worked at Stafford No.2 Colliery, Stoke on Trent, until the
end of 1955. It was during this period I was involved with Ray Garner in
Regional Labour Party activities - particularly those of the Labour League
of Youth’. Good on yer, Stan as we might say in the Black Country, or
perhaps it is London.

GORDON BROWN CREEPS INTO WOLVERHAMPTON.
Gordon Brown made his first public engagement after his monumental U
turn in axing the 10p tax rate in the face of near certain defeat in the
Commons. The Prime Minister toured a nursery school in Bilston. But was
described by the Express and Star as looking very tired as he faced the fact
of the highly successful strike of teachers which closed many schools in
Wolverhampton today. Asked if this had been his worst week in politics, he
was non-committal. Of the teachers’ strike he condemned the strike as
‘regrettable and unjustifiable’. Well, he would wouldn’t he? But
Wolverhampton NUT secretary David Cole described the 2.45% increase as
abysmal and public sector workers as ‘the backbone of the country’, while
Mike Hardacre, Wolverhampton NUT president said that teachers were,
‘bubbling with discontent’ .’ A badly paid teaching force can only produce
dissatisfied teachers who cannot do their job and the decision to strike was
not taken lightly’.
But for Brown things are not going to get better. The RMT strike on the
London underground will continue and the day of judgement looms for the
unelected Prime Minister with the local elections next Thursday.

SMOKING OUT THE WAR MONGERS.
At the national level surly, burly Gordon Brown refuses to retreat on
his demand that suspected terrorists should be held for 42 days despite the
renewed opposition of Sir Ken McDonald Britain’s most senior public
prosecutor who reveals that he is managing quite comfortably on 28 days and
in fact no suspect had been held for more than 14 days in the last month.
Brown is supported by Jacqui Smith the Home Secretary. Since a former
attorney-general Lord Goldsmith is also opposed to the extension this is
certain to provoke a rebellion in Parliament when the Bill comes up for the
vote.
At a local level the W’ton City Council has disgraced itself by
falling for the fairy tale that the government is able to provide
?300million to refurbish schools in Wolverhampton as long as they accept two
Educational Academies. Fortunately the scheme is not due to start until 2010
when the culprits will have had time either to repent of their sins, or
would have been swept from office by an irate public.
So there is to be a straight fight between the main teaching unions who
stand behind the traditional Labour demand for Comprehensive Education and
Lord Adonis, a main protagonist of Academies. This has already led to The
Socialist Educational Association the only educational body affiliated to
the Labour Party. to protest. An article by Malcolm Horne, secretary of the
SFA.writes of the 2nd.Conference against Academies which took place at
Congress House, the home of the TUC on 8 March 2008. It was chaired by
Kevin Courtney VP of SERTUC and National Union of Teachers executive
member, and our own Ken Purchase MP editor on the MP’s Committee of Enquiry
into Academies and Trust Schools. According to Ken, Academies were purely
money making schemes taking schools out of local control and the Public
Accounts Committee had found private sponsors awarding themselves with
contract with the schools. When he asked for total capital expenditure on
Academies he was told that it was not available, but both capital and
current expenditure on Academies is well above that on other schools. What
is not clear is whether the result were better.
Other speakers stressed that Academies were undemocratic and undermined
community cohesion and trade union rights. They also have a very high
exclusion rate some as high as 26% which becomes a mechanism for cranking up
exam results.They were not open to public scrutiny and there was no way of
knowing how they would affect other schools.
To this we can add locally that information is withheld by most of our
Secondary schools as to whether blacks are discriminated against, whether
there is racism in either the school or the playground, whether they stick
to their appointed catchment area for recruitment of pupils or whether by
giving themselves fancy names, such as Business Schools, or Sport or
Entertainment schools the they recruit from the whole city and beyond they
adversely affect other schools.
And that is only Secondary Schools. Most of our Primary and Infant
Schools are controlled by Church authorities which have all the say, but the
local taxpayers pay. The educational unions and most of the public are
opposed to faith schools which operate without disclosing either their
motives or the amount that they are subsidising the school.

NADIR KHAN
I wrote last night of my not being able to find time to read Nasir
Khan’s book on, ‘Development of the Concept and Theory of Alienation in
Marx’s Writing March 1843 to August 1844′. I am pleased to say that I found
a couple of hours yesterday to read to the end of Chapter 2, where Nasir
discusses different concepts of Alienation from modern ones which are almost
meaningless, back historically to the Bible and also Hegel, and Feuerbach.
I’ve come to the conclusion, however, that I ought to read Marx’s own work
on Alienation which appears in his ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844′. Nasir, as both philosopher and activist writing an astonishingly
detailed daily Blog (see nasir.khan@c2i.net) . Nasir also agrees with the
assessment of Michael Moore that it must be Obama for President as Hilary
Clinto demeans herself by appealing to the most backward of whites who will
under no circumstances vote for a black.

THOSE WHO FAIL TO REPLY TO ME - ROB MARRIS SHOWS THE WAY.
Rob Marris, my MP is not only finding out for me whether public
servants are obliged to reply to correspondents, but sets an example by
telling me what his own procedure is. He says that he tries to reply to
every letter, postcard, telephone and email that he receives. There are one
or two exceptions. Firstly if he does not get the email, and only find about
it later. This seems to happen more often than with letters sent to me
Secondly, on occasions, I do not reply to individual’s letters when they
are not constituents. Thirdly, very, very occasionally I get abuse
communications, which do not warrant a reply.
So there is a civilised reply for those who refuse to talk to me which
includes Gordon Brown and all his New Labour minions who will not answer my
charge of supporting and intensifying the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine etc.
Iraq; The Learning and Skills Council who closed the first multicultural
college in Britain, Ballston Community College, The Heads of BBC and ITV for
failing to discipline Paxman, Marr, Wark, Kearney and Jon Snow for failing
to reply to me. Peter Baron the BBC news producer who I asked who actually
decides what is actually put into the news script. Is it the newsreader or
him. That’s to mention just a few whose salaries are larger than their
manners..

I SHALL NOT VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS THE WAR IN IRAQ.
For postal voters the ballots have now been sent out and I know that
there are four candidates standing. First off the mark was SARAH SINCLAIR
Lib-Dem candidate with a personally delivered letter stating that she and
others in the local branch were very much against the war and had written to
Rob Marris our MP telling him to apologise for his support for the war. So
Sarah is in
line for my vote if the Labour candidate is a supporter of the war. My
natural disposition if a Communist is not standing, which unfortunately is
invariably the case these days, is to vote Labour since I am a member of
the Labour Party Party through the affiliation of my trade union UCU
(University and
College Union). But of course, I will not vote for
anyone in favour of the war in Iraq. The Labour candidate in Tettenhall
Wightwick ward is an Indian Jagnandan Kumar Ghera to whom I have sent a
letter asking him for his views on the war in Iraq and saying that I would
prefer to have a personal visit from him. A similar letter has gone to the
other two candidates. One is Joan Stevenson who is already a Councillor, but
I cannot think whether her views are in line with the other two councillors
in this ward, Wendy Thompson and Andrew Wynne, who are both opponents of the
war, The other candidate is Raymond Barry standing as a representative
of the Equal Parenting Alliance. This is a cause I could embrace,but not one
I could get much worked up about at my age. However it would be interesting
to get his views on the war in Iraq. So unless Ghera turns out to be an
anti-war man I shall be faced with a very difficult choice between a Tory
and a Lib-Dem. I guess it would be Lib-Dem because their party is opposed to
the war, whereas David Cameron, the Eton Toff, after beginning promisingly
enough by opposing the war has since changed his mind (without consulting
his party, note) and now supports the war. This will make him look very
silly if the general election were a hung one which is still the most
likely result and Cameron seeks a coalition with the Lib-Dems who have been
anti-war from the beginning. So it all depends on Ghera being anti-war.

FINDING TIME TO READ.
For an 89 year old person like myself in poor health, the demands of
personal hygiene, plus sending last night’s BLOG to all those who are named
in it, plus writing the BLOG of the day, leaves almost no time for reading.
Last night’s BLOG took me to 3am, and today’s BLOG which I started about an
hour ago is at this particular stage at 7pm so will certainly take me until
2am unless I miss a day (which I am quite entitled to do) or shorten it.
Yet I must find time to read if I’m not to become a Margaret Thatcher who
never read a book after she became Prime Minister, and look where that
landed her and us.
A book I’m determined to read is a very difficult one. It is my friend
Nasir Khan’s remarkable book, ‘Development of the Concept and Theory of
Alienation in Marx’s Writings March 1843 to August 1844′. The blurb on the
back cover says, ‘ In this study the question of human alienation comes
under a profound scrutiny. From a critique of the views of Feuerbach
regarding religious alienation and Hegel’s philosophy of the state and
civil society for political alienation, Marx comes to formulate a
socio-economic orientated theory of alienation in concrete historical terms
in the Paris manuscripts uptil 1844′. Phew! And still it goes on!
Nasir today has asked me to draw attention to a review of his book by
Jay Raskin an American philosopher who teaches at South Florida University.
He has a sound knowledge of German philosophy and knows the controversies
involved in the humanist tradition which Nasir was exploring. He was the
only reviewer to point out that that my thesis was directed against
Althusser formulation, that he had done a lot of work on Althusseer for his
doctoral degree before getting fed up with his perspective and then turned
to Marx himself to put forth his view. Phew! Phew again! Should I read
some of Nasir tonight or some less demanding fare such as my pleasure at
being reunited with another friend, Sedhev Bismal, who wrote last night in
the Express and Star of his experience on coming to Wolverhampton 41 years
ago as, ‘A journey into Hades’ because of Enoch Powell. Or shall I comment
on Wolverhampton’s united effort to Unite against Racism, or perhaps I
should get in touch with Arsenal Trust Supporters website who have just
thanked me for becoming an Honorary Life Member and with whom I want to
enter a dialogue as one of the few people left who saw the great Arsenal
team of the 1930s under Herbert Chapman and the equally great team under
Arsene Wenger, or should I spend some time putting my papers in order?
Well, at 9-40pm I’ll stop and make myself a nice cup of tea and we’ll see
how I feel after that.
But before I could make my cup of tea I was sternly rebuked by my dear
wife, Esme, who said that the evening meal was almost ready and poured me a
glass of sherry and told me to eat salted pea nuts until dinner was on the
table. I then dallied to watch Jack Dee and Rob Brydon in Live at the
Apollo, Hamersmith, but tore myself away (unlike last night when I watched
to the very end that marvellous British Film, the ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’
with a superb performance from Charles Laughton and didn’t get to bed until
3am which I made up for today by sleeping in until 10-30am. This I will not
repeat tonight. This BLOG will be sent before midnight and I will have a
couple of hours to myself to read ‘Alienation.’

NO RUSH TO CONTACT ME.
Still no replies from Gordon Brown and his merry men, busier than ever
killing Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian children, women and men. No reply from
Sir Trevor Phillips charged with supporting Brown’s wars and therefore no
person to be able to represent ethnic minority people in the Commission for
Equality and Human Rights, or the rights of women, or anybody else.
No reply from the Learning and Skills Council which closed the first
multicultural college in Britain, Bilston Community College (BCC) with its
30% ethnic minority staff and when it could find no charge to bring against
its staff made a Faustian pact with its auditors, Deloitte and Touche, on
condition that they admitted to wrongly approving certain educational
courses, as long as the deal was not disclosed to the public.
No reply from our local man, Richard Carr, chief executive of W’ton
politely requested to answer the question who runs Wolverhampton? and also
asked to kick-start our investigations into the Battle of Tettenhall AD910,
whether it took place in Tettenhall or Wednesfield, questions which affect
both the prestige of the City and its finances.
These are key matters affecting the emergence of Wolverhampton as the
City raised by its own boot straps from the assumed capital of Racism in the
days of Enoch Powell to the City of Culture, Education, Sport and Business
2009 to which we aspire.

MORE HELPFUL PEOPLE.
We are not, however, without friends who do contact us. Take, for
instance our good friends in East London who are co-operating with us in
seeing off St.Modwens, the far from saintly property company which
bankrupted itself in closing Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary, leaving an eyesore
at Chapel Ash one of the main entries to the city. The Eye Infirmary was
moved to New Cross Hospital where MRSA and Cdifficle were rife but were
unknown at Chapel Ash. It should be possible to return the Eye Hospital to
its original site, if the City council funds its return and with the
co-operation of all others who have suffered from the machinations of
St.Modwen. These now include not only our East London friends, but also
Bognor Regis who want the town developed on terms that suit its townspeople
and not the profits of developers. The complaint is put by Simon McDougal,
Lib-Dem councillor in Bognor, who says that a public consultation did not
represent the opinions of most of its citizens and the local authority was
not consulted at all. These, again, are people Wolverhampton can co-operate
with in restoring our 120 year old Eye Infirmary and one of our listed
buildings from destruction as well as protecting the health of our citizens
by separating it from New Cross Hospital and bringing it back to its
original site.

MICHAEL MOORE.
Another helpful person has been Michael Moore in his latest Newsletter
of 21 April. This is available on maillist@michaelmoore.com After wrestling
with the dilemma of either voting for the first female president or the
first black president and stating that both were dependent on big business
to finance them he then looks at the events of the last few days which
brings him down on the side of Barack Obama. The debate last week was the
final straw when Hilary Clinton went from merely disappointing to absolutely
disgusting. She and her husband hurled the name Farrakhan out of the blue.
Obama has no connections with Farrakhan, but according to Hilary Clinton
Obama’s pastor does and his church bulletin once supported someone from
Hamas.
This sleazy attempt to recruit that backward part of the white
population who will never vote black was inexcusable and the fact that
Hilary voted for the war in Iraq at its beginning means that she will not
enter the promised land of President . It is foolish to see the Democratic
Party as anything but the nicer party that exists to do the bidding of the
corporate elite. But Obama has been shown to have an inherent decency in
that he will not mention that when Bill Clinton was going through his
difficulty with Monica Lewinsky it was the same Revd. Jeremy Wright who was
brought into the White House for counselling. Obama has shown this innate
decency. He will not throw this at her. She has suffered enough. But Hilary
knows there are many whites who will never vote black and she has now
reduced herself to depending on it. So Michael Moore who lives in Michigan
where he doesn’t have a vote this primary season would vote for the first
black president, if he had a vote.
This makes sense to me, and I will be consulting another friend of
mine Nasir Khan on whether he is of the same opinion.

MORE FRIENDS WHO WILL BE HELPFUL
Liberty’a latest bulletin talks of the campaign to release or charge
those suspected of terrorism. Appropriately it was on April Fool’s Day that
the Government held the second reading of the so-called Anti-Terrorist Bill.
Many MPs spoke out and refused to vote for the proposal to extend the period
of pre-charge detention to 42 days. But the government is ignoring this and
will press on with this Bill.
Many international figures oppose the 42 day extension. They include
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, and prominent human rights activists
from Burma, Pakistan and the United States. The adverts for MySpace and
YouTube were on display until 18th April. Also in London Art House cinemas
and in key constituencies across the country.These can all be picked up on
the Liberty website. For applications for membership email
membership@liberty-human-rights.ork.uk.

MY NEW DIGITAL HEARING AID.
I had an early chance to try out my new hearing aid when we went out for
a meal on the occasion of my No.1 son Robert’s 47th birthday. It was
obviously superior to my old non-digital aid but the question posed was
whether it was superior enough to justify the extra expense. This problem
was not solved, because my counsellor is a bit of a forgetful bloke and
didn’t leave an instruction book which explains an additional button which
gives me four levels of hearing including that of hearing in crowds. But I
have bought the thing for ?595 . and an entirely different question is
posed. And that is I can buy a complete laptop computer for ?399-99. And
what is the technology of the hearing aid which justifies a price of nearly
?600? This I shall put to my counsellor when he returns in a fortnight’s
time.

STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER NO.1040 20TH APRIL 2008
As Gordon Brown returns from genuflecting before George Bush and
confirms that he, like his predecessor, stands shoulder to shoulder in the
continuation of war crimes which have slaughtered hundreds and thousands and
driven millions from their home. Thus begins the Bulletin. It goes on. The
blank cheque that Gordon Brown gave to George Bush for British troops to
stay in Iraq for as long as it suits America’s imperial purposes shows that
all support must be mobilised for the demand that all troops be brought home
at once.
The Newsletter emphasises the atrocities committed by the Israeli
government in Palestine as highlighted in our BLOG by Nasir Khan of 13 April
and advertises a National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 10th May
for a Free Palestine, Ending the Siege on Gaza, for the Right to return to
Palestine and Ending Israeli Occupation. Assemble 1pm at Temple underground
station and march to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Its organisers include the
British Muslim Initiative, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, many national
Trade Unions, War on Want, Jewish Socialist Group, Pax Christi and others.
For further details see www.palestinecampaign.org.
With much left untold.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES