The Barnsby Blog

JOHN PILGER HAS HIS SAY ON BARAK OBAMA.
Almost as influential as Fidel Castro is John Pilger the veteran
Australian scourge of Bush and Blair who sets about exposing Obama from a
different angle. Is this liberalisms last fling ask John.. This is the
season of 1968 nostalgia and the one anniversary that illuminates that
period is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy who would have been elected
president of the USA had he not been assassinated in that year. Pilger
travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador
Hotel, Los Angeles on 5 June, so he heard Kennedy’s speech many times. He
would ‘ return government to the people’, and bestow ‘dignity and justice’
on the oppressed. Kennedy’s campaign was a model for Obama.
Like Obama he was a Senator with no achievements to his name. Like
Obama he raised the expectations of the young and minorities. Like Obama he
promised the end of an unpopular war, not because he objected to the war’s
conquests of other people’s lands and conquest, but because it is
‘unwinnable’. Should Obama beat John McCain to the Whitehouse in November it
will be liberalism’s last fling.
In the United States and Britain liberalism as a war-making, divisive
ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A
great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and New Labour
attests, but many are disorientated and eager for ‘leadership’ from America
and basic social democracy. But in the USA the unrelenting propaganda
about the uniqueness of American democracy disguises a corporate system
based on extremes of wealth and privilege. In this the Democratic Party has
played a crucial, compliant role.
In 1968 Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own
ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the
civil-rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets
of the main cities which had been drawn together by Martin Luther King until
he was assassinated in April of that year. Kennedy had supported the war in
Vietnam and continued to do so in private, but this was skilfully suppressed
against the maverick, Eugene McCarthy
whose surprise victory on an anti-war ticket in a New Hampshire primary,
had forced Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the
memory of his martyred brother, Kennnedy assiduously exploited the electoral
power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them,
not the rich. ‘These people love you’ said Pilger to Kennedy where the
immigrant population lived in abject poverty yet came like a great wave and
swept him out of his car. Yes, they love me and I love them. But how exactly
will you lift them out of poverty and what is your political philosophy? My
philosophy is based on the on a faith in this country, and I want to give
it back to them because we are the best and last hope of the world. The
vacuities are the same, but Obama will secure, like every president the
best democracy that money can buy.
As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how,
regardless of the mutual personal smears Obama and McCain the Republican
draw nearer to each other. They already agree on America’s divine right to
rule the world. Obama says that in pursing terrorists he would attack Iran,
McCain agrees. Both parties have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel
Aviv. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of
Israel’s starvation of the people of Gaza. Such is his concern for the
victims of longest, illegal, military occupation of modern times. Like all
the candidates Obama has furthered the Israeli/ Bush fictions about Iran
being a ‘threat to all of us’.
On the war in Iraq Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost agreed.
McCain now wants to remove US troops in 5 years instead of his original 100
years. Obama has now changed his pledge to remove all troops from Iraq next
year to ‘listening to our commanders on the ground’. His adviser on Iraq,
Colin Kahn says US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010.
Like McCain Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support funding for
Bush’s war in Iraq and his senior advisors support the latest attempt to
undermine the authority of the UN, the League of Democracies led by the US.
Pilger’s article goes on to describe how we are all being hoodwinked by
US big business. At this time of fundamental change we need coalitions of
all anti-war and anti-racist people to fundamentally change the world and it
won’t be Bush and his Neo-cons, nor Blair and Brown and their New
Labourites, nor Obama or Hillary Clinton unfortunately, but new coalitions
, devoted to the peaceful, non-nuclear, anti-racist world of the future.

OTHER NEGLECTED BUSINESS.
No sign of replies from Richard Carr, chief executive of W’ton nor from
Alan Hart the new Tory leader of Wolverhampton on the present state of
Wolverhampton and progress on investigations as to whether the Battle of
Tettenhall was fought in Tettenhall or Wednesfield, but I must continue to
badger them, when I would prefer to have friendly relations with them on
making Wolverhampton the City of Culture, Education, Sport and Business in
2009.
Joe Davies, the ex-copper, steam engine enthusiast, ex-service
organisation activist and much else who lives at 129 Henwood Rd. and to
whose house I walk with my three wheeled trolley and then I walk back to
Geoff Sidbotham at the other end of the road, have both contributed to
matters today. Joe has had the disabled motor cycle stolen from his house
and has had the greatest difficulty in getting the police to issue a crime
ticket for the theft. He has turned the air blue with his comparison between
the police in his day and those of today. We then got on to our early
childhoods and I asked Joe how he learned to read, because I have nott the
faintest idea how I managed it. He then launched into a long tale of a poor
boy who grew up on a Shropshire farm was up about 4am to milk cows and look
after other animals, had breakfast, delivered papers on his way to school
and after school milked cows again. Then at 14 he was glad to leave school
and travel in the haulage business, but instead of it being the motor trade
he was given a horse and cart which continued until he joined the army in
1942 .Then he joined the RASC and learned to drive. His connection with
horses, however, continued after the war when he joined the police and
whenever there was a run away horse. Joe was sent to deal with it.
I then told Joe of my experiences in London where I attended Battersea
Central School and then London’s famed evening classes where I learned the
rudiments of typing and short hand. So that when I became a short hand and
typist in an all-male paint factory, I didn’t even know which side of carbon
to put between two sheets of paper. But I survived until I was called up in
1939. Then I found that when whatever unit I was with learned that I did
shorthand and typing I was put into the office. Being a clerk was a cushy
job, because it meant that you didn’t have to go on route marches which I
never survived anyway because of blisters made by the army boots which I
would have survived if I’d been allowed to wear ordinary shoes. But the
climax came when I was transferred to 4th Corps headquarters in Burma.
Usually Corps HQ was a couple of hundred miles away from any scene of
fighting. But it was just my luck that within a few weeks we were surrounded
by the Japanese in the siege of Imphal and I slept with a revolver under my
pillow and my mosquito net and would have had to fight it out hand to hand
if they had broken through. But they didn’t and my life was spared by
soldiers braver than me. All this and other things were discussed by Joe and
me, so that when I eventually got away I said I would blame him if I didn’t
get to bed to after 3am which happened yesterday. Now it is 12.20am and it
looks as if I shall be able to finish this BLOG before 2am, the time I aim
at.
So let’s hurry on to my walk to the other end of Henwood Road where
Geoff Sidbotham has been busy transferring the papers of Frank Spittle on
Sport in Wolverhampton first to his computer and then emailing them to me.
These are the most valuable account of the deficiencies of sport in
Wolverhampton and how to put it right. They can now be downloaded from my
Blog and begin with Frank aged 5 in 1932 as the first Wolves mascot. In 1942
he was a founder member of Wolverhampton Racing Cycling Club founded by
Percy Stalllard..In War Time Holidays at home he boxed on Molineux grounds
with John Warren and won a trophy of Jimmy Wilde Gloves which were
purchased by his father and now appears at the Sir Jack Hayward suite. In
the same year he won the Army Intake Rifle shooting competition. In 1943 he
won the Intake Army Boxing Championship. 1946 discharged from army with the
King’s Silver war badge for disability. 1950 formed a team and became
founder of Walker’s Crisps now acknowledged by Walkers as their founder.
Joined 8th Battalion Home Guard Club shooting full-bore and small-bore with
Capt.Cliff Everall. Commanders John Wilcox and Major Heyhoe (Rachael’s dad).
Founder of the James Gibbon Rifle Club and range opened by Harry Bagley
Mayor of W’ton. Achieved World Master status 1957 and first W’ton man to
achieve this status since 1906. Queen Alexander Cup, Bisley. This is the
blue ribbon of Rifle Shooting . Only W’ton man ever to win this award.
Founder of Shooting for the Disabled at Stoke Mandeville. Instrumental in
obtaining ?240,000 from the Lottery Fund to refurbish the Alderfly Rifle
Range. This was the beginning of his complaints against the Council officers
and Councillors who ruined the shooting range and took control of sport from
the sportsmen and women who have always known best how sport in
Wolverhampton should be run. Frank’s family have also been involved in sport
resulting in three generations of the family entitled to wear England
blazers.
Now that these papers are readily available I have no hesitation in
saying that the sports situation in Wolverhampton could be radically
transformed and ask all people interested in sport to co-operate. It is now
1.35am. and I can do little but mention other events. One is my reunion with
Sedhev Bismal an old friend who was in charge of Multiracial education in
Wolverhampton. I am already trying to introduce him to George Frith who
might have become the greatest sportsman in Wolverhampton by playing
football for England, or cricket for England or both had he not been struck
down by a spinal condition which has left him totally paralysed.
I must also mention an email from the Arsenal Supporters Trust of which
I am a life member. It discusses and makes suggestion about the appointment
of a Managing Director with which I agree, but it will enable me to pursue a
programme for Arsene Wenger, the most important point of which is a sliding
roof for the Emirates Stadium.
There have been other matters, which I must defer until tomorrow since
it is now 2-35am. I was wrong. Joe must be cursed

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

FIDEL CASTRO
Undoubtedly the most remarkable politician alive today is Fidel Castro.
The longest lived head of state in the world survivor of more than 200
attemps to assassinate him by George Bush and his Neo-Cons. A corner of his
tiny island occupied by American imperialists since the fall of the Spanish
Empire in 1898. The builder of the first Communist state in South America.
Thought to have died when he had to have intestinal surgery in 2007.
Literally, ‘risen from the grave’ to write the most important book of 2007
in
which he discusses lucidly and logically statespersons of the past as well
as offering a blue-print of the new, multicultural world now arising from
the ruins of capitalism. This is the man I wish to discuss today because of
a statement that might well rank as the most important he has ever made.
Fidel puts questions for Obama in today’s Guardian, which I admire for
publishing something from Fidel which I doubt if other papers have done. So,
although the editor was a party to the closure of Bilston Community College
and refuses to publish anything by me in his paper it is particularly
important and one of the reasons I continue to buy it even if it is part of
the Commentariat lashed by Media Lens this week.
Fidel writes: It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing
Barack Obana’s speech delivered at the Cuban American National Foundation
last Friday. I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for
the crimes committed against Cuba and humanity.
Fide, never one to burke an issue, he used to give twelve hour speeches
in day gone by, so he puts the full charge brought by Obama against Cuba. He
goes on to say, what were Obama’s statements. Throughout my entire life,
there has been injustice and repression in Cuba. Never in my lifetime have
the people of Cuba known freedom. Never in the lives of two generations of
Cubans have the people known democracy…I won’t stand for this injustice..I
will maintain the embargo.
Oh, dear! here goes the lynchpin of my,
‘Irreversible Rise and Rise of the Ethnic Invincibles, since every one knows
that the United Nations and more countries every year oppose the blockade.
However, lets go on paraphrasing Fidel. Obama,portrays the Cuban revolutions
as anti-democratic. It is the same argument that US administrations have for
years justified crimes against Cuba. The blockade is an act of genocide. I
don’t want to see US children inculcated with these shameful values.
No small and blockaded country such as ours would have been able to
hold its ground for so long on the basis of deceit, ambition and vanity or
the abuse of power that its powerful neighbour has. To state otherwise is an
insult to our heroic people. I am not questioning Obama’s great
intelligence, his debating skills or his work ethic. He is a talented orator
and is ahead of his rivals in the presidential race.
Nevertheless I am obliged to raise a number of delicate issues. I do
not expect answers. I wish only to raise them for the record. Is it right
for the president of the United States to order the assassination of any
individual in the world? Is it right for the president to order the torture
of other human beings? Should state terrorism be used by a country as
powerful as the US as an instrument to bring peace to the planet?
Is an Adjustment Act applied as a punishment to only once country in
the world, Cuba, in order to destabilise it good and honourable when it
costs the lives of innocent women and children? Are the brain drain and the
continuous theft of the best scientific and intellectual minds in poor
countries moral and justifiable? Is if fair to stage pre-emptive attacks?
Is it honourable and sane to invest billions of dollars in the
military-industrial complex to produce weapons that can destroy life on
earth several time over? Is that the way in which the US expresses its
respect for freedom, democracy and human rights?
Before judging our country Obama should know that our country with its
educational,health, sports culture and science programmes, implemented not
only in its own country, but also other countries throughout the world,
All this in spite of the economic and the aggression of its powerful
neighbour is proof that much can be done on very little. Cuba has never
subordinated cooperation with other countries to ideological requirements.
We offered the US help when hurricane Katrina lashed the city of New
Orleans. Our revolution can mobilises tens of thousands of doctors and
health technicians and an equal number of teachers and citizens who are
willing to travel to any corner of the world to fulfil any noble purpose,
not to usurp rights or take control of raw materials.
The goodwill and determination of people constitutes limitless
resources that would not fit in the vault of a bank. They cannot spring from
the hypocritical politics of an empire.
End of statement. Surely no reasonable person could deny that Fidel
has won the day.
If Fidel does not expect a reply it is because to reply would lead to
argument that the opponent cannot win. This is so with our statement to
David Cameron that he will never be Prime Minister while he supports the war
in Iraq. He refuses to answer us presumably because he knows that he is in
the wrong. But we persist in requiring answers particularly from Richard
Cross, the chief executive of Wolverhampton, who refuses to answer our
question of Who Runs Wolverhampton. The same thing applies to our request
to Gordon Brown that he ceases support for the war in Iraq and brings the
troops home NOW. So although we now have acknowledgements of the Prime
Minister and Harriett Harman of our messages, we will share the fate of
Fidel in not expecting a reply. And this we will treat as a badge of honour.

SAVE OUR NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.
Good luck to Dr.Satya Sharma of Bilston Health Centre who according to
today’s Express and Star wants support for the British Medical Association
campaign to prevent the privatisation of the Health Service. It is good to
know that a local Medical Committee has now issued ‘Save our Surgery
leaflets in the city. The government’s determination to privatise the health
service is disclosed in its statement that although GP will be run by
private companies, but GPs can bid for them as well. GPs want to practise
medicine not administer business, just as teachers want to teach, not see
their schools privatised. I’m sure the petition will be signed throughout
the City not least by my doctor Dr.Wilson and others at the Lower Green
Medical Centre in Tettenhall.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

U3A - UNIVERSITY OF THE THIRD AGE.
The Express and Star published a very interesting supplement on May 15
on
Lifelong Learning to coincide with Adult Learners’ Week 17-23 May. It is a
sad fact that the Blair government after boasting of its support for this
noble principle decided that the money was not available and has
consistently cut provision for the elderly to courses which have a
vocational purpose and since then have boosted costs of courses to the point
that few OAPers can afford them. And what wrong Blair could wreak Gordon
Brown can do worse.
It is interesting to go through the Express and Star supplement to see
what there is left for them to print.I learn first of the Robert Owen
Society which runs a local Robert Owen Learning Academy at Castlefields,
Leominster, Hereford offering a teacher tasting course. If you have a
degree or are working towards one, their courses offer you training in this
dynamic profession at excellent local schools and colleges. Then there is
Pendrell Hall at Codsall Wood S.Staffs whose courses I have attended in the
past and which is now, it, seems, a College of Residential Adult
Education. Another College well known to me when I was researching my
chapter
on education in my, ‘Social Conditions in the Black Country 1800 to 1900′.
It
offers a wide range of courses for the over 55s with many courses free with
some bursaries available. This latter in bold type suggesting that it may
not always be easy to attend courses. Then there is the juggernaut of a
guano imposed on Universities, Colleges and the upper end of schools, the
Learning and Skillls Council,
which closed the first multicultural College in Britain, Bilston Community
College and now professes to give a helping hand with its Adult Learning
Grant of ?30 a week when you study for 12 hours or more a for GCSEs,
NVQs, B.Techs or A Levels.
Then, the Express and Star supplement carries a two page advert for
The College of Continuing Education which seems to be owned by Walsall
Council and appears to offer al the courses offered by Colleges and
Universities. Then comes BRAIN TRAIN run by Sandwell Council and on to ALPS
(Aimhigher Learning Pathways Systems) owned by we know not who. All these
are highly recommended by OFSTED, the government sponsored schools
inspection unit of which we are highly suspicious, because they continue to
deny the information we need to judge of whether these schools with fancy
sounding names such as Sports Colleges, Business Colleges, Computers, Dance
etc. are not a maask allowing them to recruit far outside their proper
catchment
area to the detriment of other schools and the possibility of racism taking
place in playgrounds and class rooms neglected.
So we wanted to know what organisations existed for self-financing of
life-long education and whether they could be sustained. Two organisations
stand out. The WEA (Workers’ Education Association) and U3A.
Neither appeared in the Express and Star supplement and I have been
reproached by Ned Williams, secretary of the WEA, in the past for not
mentioning the WEA, and I have still to approach him for the courses they
run and an annual balance sheet and I will do so. But I have approached Len
and Christine Moore for such documents which I have now received and I
review them below. The first Bulletin for 2008 records a successful year
with increased membership, new groups, new officers and plenty of happy
times with good friends.
The cinema group rounded off 2007 with a Korean film. The subject was
Respect, a Korean trait. One of the many varied and interesting films we
have enjoyed together, reports Henry Metzger. Understanding Opera Group, La
Cenerentola and Macbeth by the Welsh National Opera and Glyndbourne
respectively. Thanks to the generosity of one of our members we also
attended a performance of ‘La Traviata’. This was Graham Vick’s production
which he brought from Verona to the National Indoor Area at Birmingham. The
highlight of 2007 for the Local History Group was a visit the Wolves
football ground. The Walking Group has now 56 listed members. Two groups
organise the shorter walks (3-5 miles) and the longer ones ( 6-9 miles). The
Christmas walk and lunch attracted 33 walkers. Our Group Holiday people went
to Corwen in the Vale of Llangollen and was so enjoyable that the same venue
is being booked for 2008. The IT Support Group had two successful workshops
in
the Bingley Centre.
Most groups meet monthly at members’ homes.
The latest balance sheet Sep 06-August 07 show total receipts of
?2714.. Main items being ?583 opening balance, ?743 members subs and ?564
collections at meetings. Payments came to ?1981, leaving a balance of ?732.
It would appear that Wolverhampton U3A can continue to operate as long
as it can find willing volunteers and the same applies to the national
organisation.
The British labour movement has a long history of having to support its
own education and differences that arose between radical groups . The first
College for working men was Ruskin College at Oxford. It was financed by a
fairly wealthy American called Walter Vrooman, who was trying to do for
working class education what Andrew Carnegie the fabulously rich American
steel maker was doing for newspapers, distributing their ill-gotten gains
with good works. One of the newspapers that Carnegie subsidised was what
became the Wolverhampton Express and Star while the colleges supported by
Vrooman included Ruskin from 1906, the year of the birth of the Labour
Party. Ruskin was run by a Council of academics and trade unionists and the
students were mainly trade unionists. The principal of Ruskin, Dennis Hird
attempted to control the College and work through the Workers’ Educational
Association as organs of working class education. developing syllabuses
based on Darwinism and Marxism. Their failure brought a Labour College
which existed at first in Oxford and then in London until 1926. From then
on Labour Colleges in other areas with voluntary teachers became opposed to
the WEA and Ruskin College teaching ‘objective ‘ (bourgeois) education.
I am suggesting a connection between those times and the position of
both the WEA and U3A today. The further contradictions of those times are
set out in my book Socialism in Birmingham and the Black Country Adult
Working Class Education pp345-347. But I suggest that the Wolverhampton U3A
led by Len and Christine Moore is an important organisation when Lifelong
Learning is under attack by the New Labour government which has neither the
means nor the will to fight for those of the Third Age and that I should
join forthwith or perhaps even more fight for a 4th Age for those who, like
me, are immobile and incapacitated but who still have most of their marbles.

NEWS FROM ILYAN.
I was most happy to receive an email from an almost forgotten friend,
Ilyan. Much of the message is cryptic and I will need interpreting, but it
has educational implications for the last item. He
has been in touch with Gulya Virag . Gulya first contacted me with regard to
the World Youth Festival in Hungary in the 1950s, when he had found a list
of all the participants and sent me a questionnaire regarding my attitude
to Hungary at that time. My attitude was that I was dismayed at the
Uprising, since it was so clear to all I met in Hungary that there was
enthusiastic support for the Communist government of the day and that I
thought that pre-war Hungarian fascists must have been behind it. Our
correspondence continued until the 50th Anniversary of the Uprising in which
I asked for his ‘non-political’ standpoint and I have a considerable amount
of excellent material. He was then working on a Ph.D on the Festival. Buy
Ilyan now tells me that he seems not to be working now in academe. So Ilyan
sent him a US publication translated from Hungarian back in the 1930s about
the Technocrats’ ideas on social development. He sent his response but has
not yet said that I can forward to the IWW people who made the Technocrat
document available on the web. Does this mean the Wobblies (Industrial
Workers of the World). The CD (what CD?) now has about 6 Plebs’ League books
on it (Is this the same Plebs that we talked of above in English Adult
education?) I shall contact both Ilyan and Gulya and no doubt things will
get explained.. In the meantime

THE
STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

THE LURE OF THE NON-EXISTENT CROCK OF GOLD.
The Express and Star tells us today that a new director is to be
appointed in the Black Country with the specific aim of helping to create an
extension for the Midland Metro. The top boss will work underneath the
Wolverhampton City chief executive, Richard Carr, and will be asked to
rally the government into funding a major transformation of the tram service
from the city to Walsall and Brierley Hill. The exact salary is not
revealed, but the total cost of finding and funding a candidate is expected
to cost taxpayers in the Black Country ?100,000. This massive bill will be
paid by taxpayers in Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Walsall and Dudley with the
director consulting with the leaders of the four councils in this ?100k
dream
Wolverhampton will be asked to take the lead on finding a suitable
candidate and will start the hunt after the Cabinet meets a week today. The
authority’s regeneration boss , Steve Boyes said that the assignment
clearly requires a person with qualities which include experience in a
specialist area, experience of working on similar projects, an understanding
of West Midlands objectives and local needs and access to the necessary
national contacts.
Well I never! All this on the shoulders of Richard Cross, the man who
persistently refuses to answer my question of who runs Wolverhampton, who
appointed him and authorised his salary in excess of ?120,000 and what does
Richard Cross do and which of the above qualities does he possess?
Then there is this Steve Boyes, said to be the authority’s regeneration
boss (over Richard Cross?)
Let’s be clear, Gordon Brown refused to fund the extension of the Metro
because he is penniless and powerless. and Wolverhampton is given the task
(by who?) of trying to con him into finding the money.
With the new, hung local council led by the Tory leader Robert Hart, does he think these funds will be forthcoming?

NEW CROSS HOSPITAL DREAMS THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM.
Nor is this the only fanciful scheme on offer to the people of
Wolverhampton. New Cross Hospital dreams of a ?100million scheme to
transform the present site with new catering facilities (they closed the
last excellent facilities) and a new pathology unit. And with a Metro stop
allowing patients to travel straight to the hospital. Gary Penn, the estates
manager is prevailed on to support this dubious scheme when the man with
the most say is David Loughton, the chief executive of the Royal
Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust who virtually single handedly closed the
Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary and then pretended that it had been moved to
New Cross where it is being even now deprived of the facilities which were
cannibalised from the Eye Hospital. and the building left as it is now
closed and boarded, an eyesore on one of the most important entries to our
City. The hope now is that the St.Modwen Property Development Co. which
abandoned the Eye Infirmary in the first place will with its Arabic funds
hope to build on its reserved status site. And none of this would have
happened if David Loughton, who resigned before he was sacked from CEO of
Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital Trusts not been appointed to
Wolverhampton..

THE LATEST CHINESE TORTURE.
My doctor, Mark Wilson, bless his soul, has devised a procedure for my
swollen feet and ankles whereby for 45 minutes I lie on my bed with a
mountain of pillows under my legs so that my legs are higher than my heart.
This is the same doctor who recommends the terrible water tablets that make
my life a misery, but I wouldn’t change him for the world.
Lying down with my legs in the air strains muscles I didn’t know
existed in neck and back and elsewhere. I never have been able to sleep on
my back as I learned in a troopship on the way to India in 1943 when I was
given a hammock which swung like mad at every lurch of the ship, so I found
respite in sleeping on the floor, and as the weather got warmer, the bliss
of sleeping on the upper deck. But I am now learning to sleep on my back,
although my bedside radio has sort of tuned itself in to BBC Radio 2 where
there is a splendid range of programmes, magnifient high opera one day,
popular music the next and jazz the next. So the torture is assuaged
somewhat by music and then deep sleep.

THE IRREVERSIBLE RISE AND RISE OF THE ETHNIC INVINCIBLES.
Lewis Hamilton yesterday won what he called the greatest triumph of
his life in winning the Monaco Grand Prix and resumed his place at the top
of the world championship. He is, of course, the only black man to have
competed in the Grand Prix and it could be that he will eventually become
the most important Grand Prix driver ever. Lewis figured in my list of
Ethnic Invincibles which I listed some weeks ago, but which I repeat here
today.
Who can stop them. Little Theo Walcott, the fastest footballer on two
legs for England’s football team. Paul Ince to be manager of England’s
football team once the present Mussolini lover and Berlusconi mafia man who
speaks little English is removed. Lewis Hamilton for the Formula One world
championship if he concentrates on the job and stops socialising with the
Tory Toffs. Osama bin Laden for the head of the United Nations once it is
realised that all nations begin as terrorists including Britain in the 17th.
century and the founding fathers of the USA. And now the Rasta man, Benjamin
Zephania for Poet Laureate now this post is becoming vacant. The man who
refused the blood stained honours of the British Empire and continues to set
an example to his compatriots who accept these baubles.
And over all in the USA is Barak Obama for President. Not to mention
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Mores. Truly the world is changing and
racism banished, largely by the efforts of black and indigenous people
themselves.

GIVING GEORGE W. BUSH A WARM WELCOME.
It seems that George Bush intends to pollute this fair island with his
presence from June 9 to 16. Of course, he should never have been invited and
if he came he should be arrested as War Criminal No.1 but he has been
invited here by Gordon Brown, now elevated to the status of War Criminal
No.2. so we must make his time here as much like hell as possible. And
proposals to do just that have been set out in Stop the War Coalition in its
Newsletter No.1042 of 21 May 2008 which gives the details .
Will they never learn that War Criminals are not wanted here? The last
time he was here in November 2003 it provoked one of the largest mid-week
demonstrations in English history with up to 300,000 on London’s streets.
Since then his war on terror has led to the loss of over 1million lives and
has spread to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Kenya, with ever increasing
threats suggesting that Iran is next.
When Condalezza Rice visited in March 2006 it turned into a public
relations disaster with large demonstrations in Liverpool, Blackburn and
everywhere else she went. Only last week the fanatical warmonger John
Bolton, formerly Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and vociferous
advocate of an immediate attack on Iran cancelled a planned visit to
Bristol for fear of the anti-war demonstration planned to meet him. (See
http://tinyurl.com/4uvq2r).
A visit from George Bush, the most despised politician in the world, not
least in his own country is surely the last thing that Gordon Brown needs.
Brown has already achieved the almost impossible by being more unpopular
than his predecessor, Tony Bair who had some of the lowest poll ratings in
British history. One reason is Brown’s broken promise to withdraw British
troops from Iraq. He’s not alone in responsibility for this. MPs in
Parliament have passively accepted Brown’s current policy of keeping troops
in Iraq for as long as George Bush insists they stay.
Stop the War Coalition is launching a campaign urging all MPs for the
troop withdrawal programme to be restarted thereby reflecting the views of
the majority of people in Britain, who oppose the British government’s
support for George Bush’s war in Iraq. StWC suggests writing letters to
MPs, lobbying MPs at their weekly surgeries writing to the local press etc.
A model letter can be downloaded here:http://tinyurl.com/599tem

US BRINGS HELL TO SOMALIA.
Somalia is suffering one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world
and it is happening under the direction of George W.Bush. His so-called war
on terror is in fact a war of terror practised against millions of people
throughout the world and once again the mainstream media is allowing him to
peddle the same justifications he used for illegal attacks on Iraq and
Afghanistan to bring horrific levels of death and destruction to the
Somali people. The monitoring web site MEDIA LENS has an excellent summary
of the realities underlying Bush’s war of terror on Somalia and the media’s
failure to record it. See: http://tinyurl.com/6z8saz

AFGHANISTAN ; ANOTHER SOLDIER DIES FOR NOTHING.
The endless killing in Afghanistan continues to get scant media
attention with the 96th British soldier to die being added to the hundreds
of Afghans, most of them women and children who have been slaughtered this
year. With one soldier on average being killed each week we are fast
approaching the landmark figure of 100 dead which Stop the War will mark
with vigils and ceremonies across the country , just as they did in 2006
when the hundredth British soldier was killed in Iraq, a figure now risen to
176 in 2008.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

DAVID CAMERON’S CHANCES OF BECOMING PRIME MINISTER - NONE UNTIL HE OPPOSES
THE WAR IN IRAQ.
Much of today has been spent emailing the high and mighty in this land
and
abroad concerning David Cameron. He can wipe the smug grin off his face
because he is never going to be the next Prime Minister unless he changes
his mind and opposes the war in Iraq and being indifferent to the slaughter
of British troops and civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine
and elsewhere.
These wars are the main issue because if they were stopped there would
be enough money to solve the crises in health, education and other social
services and terrorism would be virtually wiped out because it is US and
British imperialism which fuels terrorism Our troops should be withdrawn
from other peoples’ countries NOW and them left to solve their own problems.
This message was sent to almost all members of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet,
to all members of Cameron’s shadow cabinet, to those economists who know
full well that Brown is stoney broke and penniless, to Mayors of London past
and present, to most daily newspapers, organisations such as the Financial
Times, news agencies such as Reuters, to Richard Carr the chief executive of
Wolverhampton, editors of such journals as the Spectator and Newstatesman
and also the leading US newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New
York Times.
There has already been a considerable response from the officials who
handle Cabinet members correspondence such as Harriet Harman, David Miliband
and Oliver Letwin, but when the emails are eventually handed to these
ministers, I wonder whether there will be any replies to me, which is the
basis of the second charge against David Cameron - that he won’t
reply to correspondence.

IN PRAISE OF THE BLOG
It is some time since I wrote in praise of the BLOG as the fastest and
most democratic form of communication yet invented. This week the Observer
cover story is 10 Years that shook the World of Books. Basically it is a
recognition that the BLOG is replacing the book but it notes further
influences of the BLOG.
It starts with Prizes. In 2002 the Booker administrators moved the
prize giving dinner from the Guildhall to the British Museum and appointed
the witty and provocative Lisa Jardine to the chair and she set the tone by
announcing that the shortlist for 2002 marked the beginning of a new era.
Some of her fellow judges then weighed in. David Baddiel complained that
they attempted to grab a big theme and have a sort of pretentiousness about
them. Such criticism had not been known since John Berger donated his prize
money to the Black Panthers. In another defining moment Jardine took her
co-judges for a ride on the London Eye ostensibly to settle a dispute about
a scene in a Howard Jacobson novel. Jacobson had been a lecturer at
Wolverhampton University.
Booker prizes then began to play an important role. Kate Mosse
founder of the Orange Prize said Prizes rather that Reviews make books
successful quoting the example of the Tenderness of Wolves whose sales rose
from 40,000 to 400,00 when she won the Costa Prize in 2006. It was about
then that I had written to Roy Hattersley complaining that neither the
night’s proceedings nor the selection of books nor the judges reflected the
influence of black people on the prize. I actually got a reply, but the
situation has not improved greatly ever since. Few paid attention to the
other great crisis of the time, the Iraq war and only one writer seems to
have tackled the war.
The most important beneficiary to the new state of affairs seems to
have been Ian McEwan. His novel, ‘Saturday’ published in 2005 is probably
not the best of his books, but after a week it became a news item on ITV.
Could it be that booksellers were becoming more important that reviewers?
In America the situation is worse. BLOG reviews hold the field. In
California the LA Times merged its book review section into a comment. The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution abolished its books editor and now a certain
Dan Wickett, a former, quality control manager for a car-parts firm now
single-handedly writes most of the reviews in the paper.
Another brain child is KINDLE of Jeff Bezos of Amazon who has already
made one fortune from global online bookselling. KINDLE is a hand-held
reading device that can hold all sorts of digital material from unpublished
manuscripts to the complete works of Marcel Proust. Surely this marks the
demise of Gutenberg and six centuries of ink and paper.
But others in the trade disagree.believing that the bulk of people
would prefer to hold, feel, treasure, give, receive, display and read a
printed book. The word, spoken and written has merely passed from the
Praetorian Guard of the elite and returned to the people. The market for the
digital book is now almost unimaginable. To be a writer in the English
language today is to be one of the luckiest people alive. Well, maybe. But
I think of the hospital waiting room I was in a few weeks ago of about
thirty people and I was the only one reading a book. The others were staring
vacantly into space, being unwilling or unable to read. Illiteracy is the
legacy of Blair and Brown who would prefer to spend our money on wars,
rather than literacy. As a bibliophile I declared my confidence in the book
in BLOG 264 last Saturday. But, of course

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

BOOKS
Last week it was jazz. This week it will be books. Centenaries abound.
It is the sixth centenary of the birth of Gutenberg. Caxton was born in
Kent in
1422, moved to Bruges and became the first English printer. But the
invention of printing vies in
importance with that of the wheel. Certainly the importance of books seems
to
be diminished. Witness any public library which once specialised in books
but are now centres of learning dominated to computers. But even in these
days when all but two of my books can be downloaded for free, the person who
thinks that the day of the book has gone is as mistaken as Francis Fukuyama
was in
thinking that the fall of the Soviet Union brought history to an end.
There is no sight as imposing as the great libraries of the world
ancient and modern ,
London, Oxford, Constantinople and back to Egypt, Greece, Hebrew and Roman.
And however utilitarian down loaded books become there is sometimes no
substitute for the book, portable and durable readable in a car, train or
plane.
This has been illustrated in a humble way by our experiences this
week. Barrie Roberts was a solicitor’s clerk in Walsall. I met him when the
curator of the library which holds the fabulous Epstein collection and an
art gallery to keep them, the New Art Gallery , decided
that he would celebrate the 50th. Anniversary of the so-called Walsall
Anarchist Bomb Plot. This was a put-up job by agents-provocateur to
infiltrate the labour movement. Roberts was there because he was also a
historian of Walsall history as well as a master of Home Office legal
tactics. I was there because I was the first person to write a full account
of the Plot from a working class point of view. Unknown to me at the time
was that Barrie was also a novelist of considerable renown. This was
revealed by Ivan Geffen himself an ex-Walsall solicitor who has now
provided me with a list of Barrie’s novels which amount to at least a dozen
and I have now set about obtaining copies of at least one of his books for
myself and
perhaps seeing that copies are in the main archives of the City and only
printed copies will suffice.
The next rare book that I am scouting around for is a book by the only
Britisher who ever played for played for Spartak Moscow in Soviet Times.
This was Jim Riodan who lived for five years in Russia and was the only
westerner to play for Spartak Moscow in Soviet times. His autobiography,
‘Comrade Jim, the Spy who played for Spartak’, is published by Fourth
Estate and costs ?16-99. Jim is now a columnist on a Portsmouth paper, so
his book is probably freely available in Britain, but this is a copy I must
have for the GB Working Class library, even though I keep saying that I have
no more space for books in my home.
This also applies to my friend Lindsay Hutchinson, a supporter of
Enver Hoxha and Stalin who kept the only progressive bookshop in Birmingham
for a number of years and had his windows removed because he showed books by
Stalin and Hoxha. He has recently moved to Unit 9 Felin Fawr Industrial
Estate, Bethesda, Gwynedd to be closer to his mother in her 90s and to
pursue his vocation of bookseller, book binder and publisher of books. So
great is his interest in books that he eschews the use of computers, which I
am constantly urging him to forgo as he might have 40 years more to live,
but he continues to covet the bookcase in my sitting room which contains
most of my Marxist classics and is a shining example of how the book will
survive the age of the computer.

POLITICS AND OTHER BOOK SURVIVALS.
The Morning Star today brings me an article by George Galloway
applauding John McDonnell’s 10 point set of demands and saying that it is
not sectarian to say that all of them are policies of RESPECT. There is also
a very erudite article from Keith Fleet comparing the situation today with
1968 and quoting Tony Benn’s Diaries who explains how despite the defeats of
that year, Labour came nearest to embrace student power and black power
which together with trade union and political power is the basis of the
united front necessary to build peace, Socialism and multiculturalism in the
future.
The NEWSTATESMAN this week tells of the scrap between Cherie Blair and Lord
Levy to get their books published before the other and Cherie’s claims that
Levy knew nothing about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown even though he was the
source that supplied the illegal millions. Martin Bright its editor
discusses where the new thinking long-term thinkers are coming from now that
Blair and his cronies are discredited. All the political stories of the week
are covered, but nothing sensational.

SATURDAY GUARDIAN REVIEW.
It was the Guardian Review that held my attention, however. Zadie Smith
(author of White Teeth a pioneer study of Caribbean and Indian sub-continent
families in England) writing on George Eliot’s Middlemarch. A review by John
Hare of Dai Smith’s book about the left wing intellectual, ‘Raymond
Williams - A Warrior’s Tale’ . A Review of Brian Paddick’s autobiography
the first openly gay high ranking police officer who clashed with his
superiors primarily over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005.
Then an interview with Gore Vidal the American and scourge of George
W.Bush even though he is a scion of the rich American families who rule
America and will probably continue to rule whether Obama the black man or
Hillary Clinton the woman become the next president.
And Germain Greer’s review of Francois Truffaut’s , ‘Jules et Jim’
which she thought when she first read it in the early 60s seemed a role
model after her own heart now finds that circumstances have so changed that
it is not a question of whether a woman can love two men at once because she
obviously can. But for true love to flourish, the partners must both be
equal. So that’s enough about books for the time being.

MARY WHITEHOUSE.
A film tonight starring Julie Walters tells the story of Mary
Whitehouse of Wolverhampton who found fame in challenging ‘ filth’ on the
BBC culminating in a bitter fight to broadcast the word ‘knickers’ in the
Beatles song I am the Walrus. All I can say is that since she lived only a
few doors away from Enoch Powell they were birds of a feather, neither with
a grasp of reality.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

ANOTHER BUSY DAY.
Much of it spent chasing people up. Still the Wolverhampton chief
executive refuses to answer my questions as to who runs Wolverhampton
despite the multifarious ‘regeneration’ organisations in the city each
jostling for Gordon Brown’s non-existent millions. The same man was egged on
by Councillor Phil Bateman to contact the Time Watch man, Tony Robinson, to
preside over our efforts to prove whether the Battle of Tettenhall 910AD
took place at Tettenhall, or Wednesfield, or somewhere else, and since this
is the most important event in the history of Wolverhampton we need
progress on this even though Phil, sadly, lost his seat in the avalanche
which swept New Labour away on May 1st. Phil is still with us as a director
of West Midlands Travel and will no doubt want to see progress made. Then
there is the equally important historical matter of Wrottesley where on an
apparent Mesolithic site, remains have been found of permanent buildings.
This at present is in the hands of the Wolverhampton Archaeology Group under
our City archaeologist Mike Shaw who has important reports to make which, as
far as I know have not yet appeared on the City website. Also concerned is
Roger Lawrence still the leader of the rump of New Labour councillors who
apparently accepts Gordon Brown’s illusory crock of gold at the end of the
rainbow even though he should know by now that if one of these posh
‘regenerators’ find some money it must be at the expense of the others.
Roger also is not being very forthcoming on whether he supports the war in
Iraq or not and this is the key issue today because of the war were stopped
there would be enough money saved to fulfil our local needs of the Health
Service, Education and other social services. It would also help solve the
crisis of a City where the Lib Dems are the kingmakers; also my scheme that
we should have a three party City council of Tories, such as Wendy Thompson
who oppose the war in Iraq, the Lib Dems who have always opposed the war and
Labour Councillors who oppose the war such as Frank Docherty who is, as far
as I know the only Labour councillor who has publicly declared his
opposition the war and the shifty refusal of the other councillors to let
those who elected them know where they stand on the war has resulted in
their present plight that nobody trusts them.

GORDON BROWN - THE CONDEMNED MAN.
Linked with our local situation is the dilemma of Brown and those of
the New Labour government who cling to him. Nigel Hastilow our Express and
Star reporter put it as well as anyone when he wrote last Friday of the
Avengers making a Mint from their Memoirs. Whose going to fork out ?18-99p
for Cherie Blair’s Memoirs. More people I suppose than will find the same
sum for the mumblings of John Prescott. And as for Lord Levy’s account of
the Blair cash-for-honours years, surely his publisher’s profit won’t be
enough to buy a miserable MBE let alone a peerage. We are witnessing a spate
of back-stabbing, point scoring, feud-settling vitriol flowing from the
ghost-written pens of new Labour’s newly dispossessed profiteers. The
contents of these books can be summed up thus: Cherie Blair, ‘Speaking for
Myself’, Tony needed me more than I needed him. Alistair is a bit of a
creep, Gordon is a moron. John Prescott, ‘My Story - Pulling No Punches’.
Prescott’s greatest claim to infamy was his affair with his diary secretary,
Tracy Temple, but although he was paid half a million pounds to tell all,
she scarcely appears in the book. Cherie is getting ?1 million for her book
and Tony Blair’s ?7 million memoirs are in the pipeline. These books
represent the very public disintegration of New Labour and anything they
write on politics is either false or will not be believed. We probably face
another two years of New Labour pioneers selling each other down the river.
All this was said last Friday.
And this Friday. Brown will have engraved on his heart 17%. That was
the Labour majority before the by-election in Crewe and Nantwhich and that
is the Conservative majority there today.
But if David Cameron thinks he is going to walk into No.10 he’s got
another think coming unless he changes his views and opposes the war in
Iraq. This is his Achilles heel and he at present shares the distinction
with Gordon Brown of being indifferent to the slaughter of British troops
and children, women and men in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and
other points around the globe.

BUSINESS STILL TO COME.
I’ve had another letter from OFCOM regarding my complaint of the BBC
and ITV not disciplining , Paxman, Marr, Wark, Kearney and Jon Snow for not
questioning Blair on the war in Iraq thus providing him with an excuse to
join Bush in the war in Iraq. The letter says that while they ask
broadcasters to have a complaints procedure in place, they have no
jurisdiction over how such processes operate or over the quality of any
eventual response. This is a matter for the broadcasters themselves. They
say they are sorry that they cannot offer any further assistance, but think
I might find the following useful. They then give me details of the
Complaints procedures for BBC and ITV. But this means we have turned a full
circle because it was dissatisfaction with their responses that made us
contact OFCOM in the first place. We shall refer the OFCOM reply to various
associations of progressive lawyers for their opinions, but it is evident
that OFCOM as with other complaints procedures are shaped, not to answer
complaints, but to evade them.
Further business deferred is from the Humanist Society asking us to
follow up the question in the last Census regarding religion, but gives hope
that in the next Census a question can be framed that recognises the large
percentage of the population who have no religion at all.
Further unfinished business includes an appeal from Labour Briefing
which incorporates the Voice of the Unions and on its front page has a
picture of Gordon Brown and a caption Change Direction or Face Oblivion..
Its editorial ask that we recruit new readers to its policy of winning back
core Labour voters to a policy of building affordable homes, promoting trade
union rights, investing in and expanding public services and withdrawing
troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, then we haven’t a chance of winning a
General Election. Annual subscription is ?15 for ten issues, cheques to
Labour Left Briefing and return to Briefing, PO Box 2378, London E5 9QU.
Then there is the weekly New Statesman which I have not had time to
look at yet, and the Express and Star, the only provincial paper I know that
opposes the war in Iraq; and lots of people responding to the BLOG who I
shall eventually get round to mentioning. So in fact:

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

MORE ABOUT JAZZ
Our jazz experts, Harry Johnson and Dave Holmes, certainly started
something last week. Harry’s tape in particular from the actual records that
we used on the recordings of the Furthest East Rhythm Club in the World at
Imphal on the India/Burma frontier in 1944. With monthly meetings and a
membership of 150, it was a cultural event of unique importance. Its
existence was interrupted by the Japanese offensive intended to conquer
India and meet up with Hitler’s armies, but was prevented by the Siege of
Imphal where we were surrounded by the Japanese for three months and
supplied by what was then the largest airlift ever staged and went on to
liberate Burma. But it turned nasty after the Americans dropped the Atom
Bomb and French and Dutch imperial forces were ferried back to ‘their’
colonies in Indo-China and Indonesia resulting in the Vietnam war and the
dictatorship of Suharto with 1 million Communists and progressives
slaughtered with the tacit approval of the US and British imperialists.
But to return to the jazz. We discovered that Daniel Smith, a splendid
jazz pianist, had Indonesian ancestors so that here might have been a
further east rhythm club in that country and this was trumped by a
suggestion that US pilots who flew supplies from India to China across the
hump (mountains) might have had a jazz club and they we noted for keeping a
record of everything that was played.
Our intention on returning the England after the war was to get small
bands or disc jockeys to replicate our sessions, and although that came to
nothing over the intervening 60 years there has always been something to
encourage the two remaining toothless survivors (Harry Johnson and myself)
that we should see and hear it repeats of our programmes before we clocked
our clogs.
And here are the very latest developments. Dan Smith suggested that we
have a CD cut of some of the sessions of the Club as a taster. This would
involve Harry Johnson putting the original commentary to each session which
were quite detailed and witty, but George does not feel able to do that and
is content at the moment to continue to produce tapes from the original
recordings we made.
Our records are with the National Jazz Archives in Loughton, Essex and
I asked David Latham the curator if they could help produce a CD. His reply
was that he could not because his remit and resources was to collect only
printed material as it was the job of the National Sound Archives to record
every piece of music published or played in Britain. When I told this to
Harry he said that his greatest friend and co-originator of the Imphal Club,
Ken Alsopp, had visited the National Sound Archives and deposited material
there. So a very interesting situation exists where we have joined the
International Association of Jazz Record Collectors of the USA to which
Harry contributed a letter to the editor in vol 40 No4 of December 2007 and
we have also traced in the US a Collar Collection which I shall want to
contact. In the meantime David Nathan is sending me the material they have
of the Imphal Club which consists of a 31 page typed script, the Story of
the No. One Rhythm Club of India, 1943-44 subheaded, ‘the farthest east
Rhythm Club’ Plus two handwritten booklets containing Secretarial Minutes
of the Imphal Rhythm Club.
This is certainly enough to keep the ball rolling for the time being.
But there is a further matter. That is to gain information of George
Shearing the great English blind jazz pianist who is seriously ill and not
able to return to England. He and I were both born in the same year, 1919,
in the London suburb of Battersea. I knew him before World War II when he
taught piano lessons at Battersea Grammar School and before he went to
America and became famous. His autobiography, ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ is to me
one of the most influential books I have ever read because he describes to
us sighted people what it is to be blind and ends with the extraordinary
statement that if he were offered sight he would not accept it. The last I
heard was that he was still able to play, but I hope my new US contacts will
be able to give me up-to-date information about George.

FRANK SPITTLE.
It seems that my piece on Frank Spittle in my BLOG of Monday 19th May
about sport in Wolverhampton and he and his family’s contribution to it was
so riddled with partial truths that he has been moved to produce a seven
sheet item putting the record straight.
I have no hesitation in stating that this is one of the most important
documents ever written on sport in Wolverhampton and I shall deal with it
fully in a couple of days or so. In the meantime I am prepared to let anyone
interested have a typed copy of this document.

THE NEW SITUATION IN WOLVERHAMPTON.
I have spent part of today phoning Richard Cross the chief executive of
the City asking why he still refuses to answer my questions as to who runs
Wolverhampton, who appointed him and who decided that he should receive a
salary of ?120,000. Despite the changed situation of the Council now
controlled by a coalition of Lib Dems and Tories, I received the same reply
from his secretary, that he was at a meeting and she would inform him that I
called. So far, again, I have heard nothing. It was the same with the new
Race Equality unit in W’ton where the new body the Race Equality Partnership
Wolverhampton (REPW) has a chief officer with a mobile phone, Jatinder
Sharma, premises in the city, but is non-operational and we have been
without an active race unit for several years while race discrimination is
on the increase and Islamophobia in particular is on the increase.
My proposal is that W’ton should have a grand 3 party coalition of
Tories who oppose the war in Iraq such as Councillor Wendy Thompson, the
five Lib Dems who are the power brokers in Wolverhampton who have always
opposed the war and Labour councillors opposed to the war including, it is
to be hoped, Roger Lawrence, the leader of the Labour Group.
The actions of the Tory group on the Council is however questioned by
Councillor Bob Jones in a letter tonight in the Express and Star. A Mr John
Holt of 15 May had expressed the hope that the defeat of the Labour Party
would lead to an end to Council decisions being taken by a one Party
cabinet. Bob Jones claims that in spite of the coalition of Tories and the
Lib Dems, whereas in the past decisions were taken undemocratically by the
majority Labour Cabinet, decisions are now being taken by the minority Tory
Cabinet and the 28 strong Labour group, still the largest Party on the
Council are being ignored. Now Councillor Neville Patten is this true, and
if so , how can you justify this double denial of democracy. First by
Cabinet members only instead of all councillors of the majority party and
now Cabinet members of the minority party? Clearly we still have to fight
that the representatives we elect should truly represent the people who
elected them.

THE BY-ELECTION RESULT.
It is now 2am and still the Crewe and Nantwhich by-election result has
not been declared. It seems that the constituency will turn blue for the
first time in its history, but if David Cameron is having dreams of being
the next Prime Minister let me remind him that his support for the war in
Iraq disqualifies him from leading a coalition of Tories and Lib Dems. The
only possible coalition he could lead unless he changes his mind would be
with Labour and the sight of him and Gordon Brown both being blind to the
continued slaughter of children, women and men would be too much for the
electorate to swallow. So

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

THE VOICE AND BORIS JOHNSON.
The Voice, the weekly newspaper of the African-Caribbean Community this
week welcomes the decision of the Heritage Lottery Fund to give ?4 millions
to the Black Culture Archives (BCA). We paraphrase the Voice editorial which
goes on to say that these funds will help give the BCA a permanent home to
showcase black history and help black Britons and those in the African
Diaspora to learn more about their ancestors. The grant is also significant
because it gives hope to many black organisations worried that they might
face cuts in funding following recent changes in leadership of several
Councils over England and Wales. Black organisations are still smarting from
cuts in funding linked with recent allegations of grant misspending linked
with well known black organisations. New administrators at London’s city
hall and Councils across the country should note the BCA’s achievements and
realise that more black organisations should get big public grants to
continue this work. Last week London’s new mayor, Boris Johnson, ordered a
panel of business experts to probe financial mismanagement at the City Hall
and the London Development Agency. His deputy chair for young people, Ray
Lewis, has promised to ensure that black organisations will not face severe
cuts and keep the focus on black issues. But how much can Lewis do if he
doesn’t get support from Bo Jo and others?
I might, at this point, draw attention to our own BEMA celebrating
the
Empire Windrush which docked in June 1948 bringing with it the hopes and
dreams of the men and women of the first mass migration from the Caribbean.
In Wolverhampton we have our own archives and grants and we takes our road
show to schools and other organisations. So in this respect we are in
advance of London.
Tony Sewell the Voice’s leading columnist goes further and says the
Boris is good for blacks. Black people make up 40% of London’s population.
They could have voted Livingstone back, but they stayed away. The truth is
from Hackney to the outer boroughs of London people want change and Mayor
Boris is a leader. For me, Boris is a devil I know. Many of us have grown
up knowing never to trust a politician be they black or white, Tory or
Labour. There are individuals in the community so damaged that no one can do
anything for them. Gang warfare on the streets will only end when young men
find something productive to do with their instincts for warfare. Boris has
said offensive thing and he probably knows little of black communities and
culture, but we don’t need patronising rhetoric about anti-racism
and diversity. Just invest our taxes in initiatives that work.

THE WORLD CUP
Tonight we have watched Manchester United and Chelsea battle it out in
Moscow for the World Cup. Man. United won on penalties and it was a
marvellous match to watch. But both teams cost unsustainable amounts of
debt to put together, Manchester United with borrowings of ?666 millions
borrowed by the Glazers, and Chelsea with a similar sum lent, not given it
seems, by
the Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovitch. Other teams are owned by their
fans
and the local community, such as Barcelona , the club of the Spanish
Republicans and Real Madrid, the team of Franco in the civil war. The
present chair of FIFA, Michel Platinini, who presented the cup tonight will
have little sympathy with either teams as he is also a supporter of local
ownership of clubs. Where will it all end? What with private equity,
venture capital and falling house prices it could all end in disaster with
clubs who have sought foreign money in an effort to reach the top four in
the Premiership facing bankruptcy and disappearing from the scene.

THE LOCAL SCENE
Troubles beset the Wolverhampton administration with its novel
problems of a Tory/Lib Dem coalition, and further afield into the West
Midlands where all are affected by the demise of New Labour and everyone
awaits the result of the by-election tomorrow in Crewe and Nantwich. The
problem is that the whole political landscape is crumbling. and people will
not accept today what the accepted in the past. So, for instance rule by
partnerships is now challenged as people demand progress for their local
community, so that Gordon Brown’s programmes for future progress run like
water off a duck’s back and most call for Brown to resign now. All these
thing come together in the latest of the multi-million pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow schemes with which the new Tory leader of W’ton council,
Neville Patten must confront. There is a plan to take the Metro further into
Birmingham from Snow Hill to New Street and build a line from Wednesbury to
Brierley Hill. A second phase would take the tracks from Wolverhampton
St.Georges to a new ?189 million railway interchange. Eventually it would be
extended out of Wolverhampton to Penn and Tettenhall. There is only one snag
about these grandiose schemes - there is no money to finance them. In March
W’ton Council leaders refused to pay for a congestion charge which would
have brought in ?400 millions of government money. so W’ton, Walsall,
Sandwell and Dudley councils have now joined Birmingham city council in
seeking alternative sources of finance. Was there anything so crazy or
anything that better justified my question to Richard Carr, W’ton’s chief
executive, as to who runs Wolverhampton. Unfortunately he refuses to reply
to me. What a state of affairs!