The Barnsby Blog

MAKING THE DUMB SPEAK.
It will be remembered that I had a friend say that Any Questions in
Wolverhampton a few weeks ago at which the Foreign Secretary, no less,
appeared had questions too critical of the government removed. So I sent a
message to the producer, Steve Anderson, asking how the audience had been
chosen and who had decided on the questions. A simple enough request and one
which many other localities might have asked over the many years the
programme has run. So why no reply?

RALPH RUSSELL
I have received a message on behalf of Ralph Russell and as it is a
written letter I have no idea how many people it has gone to. I was in touch
will Ralph for a number of years after 1945. He was in the Communist Party
when he was in India during the war and I have a copy of his book called,
‘Findings,Keepings, Life, Communism and Everything.’ He became one of the
foremost western scholars of Urdu literature He taught for 30 years at the
School of Oriental and African Studies. His honesty, humour and unusual
insight have won him a unique place in the affections of lovers of Urdu
worldwide. This gives a flavour of the man and his biography is said to
cover his life as a child, boy and young man. There were obviously intended
to be further volumes which I don’t think materialised. Fortunately the thd
part includes his service in India during the second world war. My feeling
is that during his service in India he managed to do at least one outrageous
thing of which the Communist Party of Great Britain disapproved, but I
cannot find it and his notes at the end of each chapter from the Third
International to his reference to the Indian National Army suggest many
points on which he would disagree with authority. The fact is, however, that
he is now suffering from the advanced stages of cancer.
But there is so much more to be said about Ralph’s life which nags at
me. I believe I first met him after the war in connection with the CPGB
Party History group, but I cannot be sure. Inside my copy of his book which
was published in 2001 he says that he knew Sid Kaufman and Bill Brookes when
he was in India and Brian Pearce was something of a mystery man. On the
question of Brian Pearce I would agree, because I thought that Brian was in
Burma, but Brian tells me that this was not so. Attached to the letter is an
extract (pp48-53) of a book by Stephen Woodhams ‘History in the Making’, .
This gives a run down on every prominent Marxist historian and what they did
during the war, published by Merlin Press. This is a book I do not possess
for my library and ought to have. But how does this concern Ralph and who
sent it to me. The only person I can think of is Rosemary Logan who was an
associate of Douglas Hyde, the Daily Worker journalist who reneged on the
Party and wrote the book, ‘I Believed’, but whose heart was really not in it
and he later returned to the Party. Such is the partial story of Ralph
Russell which I hope others might be able to shed fresh light on.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

THE VISIT TO MOLINEUX.
The eagerly anticipated visit to the Wolves football ground took place
yesterday and everyone connected with it did me proud including above all
Frank Spittle who took all the photographs and in less than 24 hours has
produced an album of all the photographs taken by him.
The first photo shows me arriving at the ground standing outside the
Billy Wright stand. .Next I am standing at the bottom of the Billy Wright
statue with my host of the day, Graham Hughes, Wolves historian and keeper
of the trophy room and library. After being introduced to the charming
receptionist we were served coffee and began to talk about the history of
Wolves. Walking through the carpeted hall the first thing one sees,
naturally, is a portrait of Sir Jack Hayward who made all this luxury
possible and whose spirit dominates the club and often his physical presence
as he retains a seat on the board and a veto ensuring that the club never
falls into foreign hands. Entering the series of trophy halls the club’s
close attachment to the city of Wolverhampton is emphasised by a cabinet
labelled, ‘ Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame’ of which the football club
is the most prestigious occupant. Proceeding, we come to the sumptuous
banqueting suite where Wolverhampton Grammar School, another ancient
institution of the city modernisiised by the head, a good friend on mine,
Dr.Bernard Trafford’s interest in music and particularly jazz was holding a
function that very evening. From the vast glass wall running the length of
the pitch, we caught our first view of the pitch and the empty stand
dominated by the distinct Wolves ‘head which is the symbol of the club.
Further on a show case on boxing emphasises the fact that the club has at
times staged boxing events among which have been matches of Frank Spittle
whose association with the club dates from the time when at the age of five
he was the first Wolves mascot and has since together with his wife and
family uniquely represented England for three generations in the sports of
rifle-shooting, athletics and cycling. Onwards into Billy’s Bootroom where
some of his England shirts that he wore are displayed , together with his
boots and the international match ball and list of internationals which
Billy Wright played - more than 100 of which about 80 he was captain.
A stop at a stand with a programme of an Wolves/Arsenal match which I
was mischievously informeded that Wolves beat Arsenal 6-1, to which I could
only reply that that didn’t happen very often. Next a picture I demanded of
Frank Spittle and I in a fond embrace, and finally a picture of me in a
Wolves cap which Frank generously provided. By this time our two hours were
almost up and we were back in the reception centre where over a cup of
coffee. I discussed with Graham and Frank my ties with Arsenal and Wolves as
the two leading clubs determined that they should be British owned and
locally controlled.
Graham accepted a copy of my, ‘I Love Arsene Wenger’ which beside
paying tribute to the man who revolutionised football gives a potted history
of Arsenal which people scoffed at me supporting when I moved from London to
Wolverhampton in 1954, but changed their views as Arsenal began to win
trophies while Wolves slumped into that dreadful period when they were
bought by the Bhatti Brothers and would probably have become bankrupt and
disappeared had they not been rescued by the City council who bought the
pitch. Subsequently the council also bought the land on which the stands are
built. This raises the question of how much Steve Morgan owns who purchased
Wolves after Sir Jack decided he had spent enough. This question should be
raised at a time when the council has changed hands from a Labour majority
interested in the club a Tory/Lib.Lab coalition who might not be so
interested in the club, or a future possibility of other varieties of
politicians taking control of the Council. These matters should be raised
and the to realise that many property developers would love to invest into
Wolves, demolish the club which is in a prime town centre location and from
which untold millions could be gained by demolishing the club and
‘regenerating’ its site. Fortunately no such danger appears at present as
modern Tories seem to be in the ascendancy who are possibly even greater
supporters of the Wolves than the New Labourites.
Our talk then turned to Kicking Racism out of Football on which it is
agreed that Wolves have a good record despite the legacy of Enoch Powell
which turned Wolverhampton into the considered racist capital of Britain. It
is all the more important that we discard that image and endeavour to make
Wolverhampton the Cultural, Educational, Sporting and Business Centre of
Britain for 2009. This is possible if we are conscious of both our future
prospects as well as our past failures.
In such discussions I realised that Graham and I shared so much in
common and that I found him a very efficient working class historian both of
the Wolves collection with which he is engaged and also the larger political
issues of a football club in a multicultural city which is still
developing.
With these thoughts I made my way back to Frank Spittles car in
earnest discussion with Graham Hughes. It was afterwards that I realised we
hadn’t discussed the latest Wolves prodigy who had once been the first black
captain of Wolves and England and may yet equal the significance of Billy
Wright. This is Paul Ince. No matter. We did not tread on the Wolves pitch,
or view the dressing room or press facilities. So we are repeating our
visit in a fortnight’s time when I hope Joe Davies will be with us. And we can talk about Paul Ince then

MAUREEN GREEN.
We recounted yesterday the story of Maureen Green, prolific writer of
letters to the Express and Star, the latest of which, lucid and detailed was
printed in the Express and Star a few days before her death concerning the
inadequacy of the local authority’s caring services. As a graduate and nurse
trained at Wolverhampton University she was well qualified to write on such
matters. Unfortunately her breast cancer recurred and she refused further
treatment for it. . She died in New Cross Hospital after an overdose of
morphine. This has meant calling in a coroner who must consider the death
certificate signed by a doctor at New Cross Hospital and give a verdict. It
seems that the hospital was able to reverse the morphine she haad swallowed
and therefore the coroner may be able to give a verdict of ‘death by
natural causes’. We await the verdict. and repeat that the funeral will be
at Bushbury West Chapel at 3pm on Monday July 7th. and a gathering after the
funeral at the Spreadeagle, Wednesfield will take place at which proper
tribute can be paid to Maureen.

MAUREEN GREEN.
We are very sad to note the death of Maureen Green in New Cross
Hospital on Tuesday 24th June .The funeral will take place at Bushbury
Crematorium West Chapel on Monday July 7th. at 3pm. She was 56 years old.
Maureen will best be remembered by many people as a prolific writer of
letters to the Express and Star often referring to her experience of the NHS
as a nurse for which calling she was trained at Wolverhampton University . I
first met Maureen when she was the secretary of the Miners’ Support Group in
the Wolverhampton University Students’ Union Building during the Miners’
Strike of 1984.
Since then Maureen suffered a series of misadventures which left her
physically impaired. Firstly in a domestic violence incident she was thrown
down the stairs and a head injury meant that her memory was permanently
impaired.
Maureen was a Christian and a member of the Labour Party for many years
until the war in Iraq to which she was violently opposed. In recent years
she suffered from cancer and recently when a recurrence of breast cancer
occurred she refused to accept treatment which she openly acknowledged was a
decision to take her own life. With accumulating physical problems she
became weaker and weaker. Eventually she took her own life, which could not
have lasted much longer, with an overdose of morphine.
Maureen was an optimist and cheerful person, who my wife, Esme, played
Scrabble with once a week. She will be missed by all who knew her and it
is hoped to hold a ‘Wake’ at which her many friends will be able to pay
proper tribute to her life.

BROWN A YEAR ON.
No one could be in doubt as to the attitude of this BLOG to Gordon
Brown. He was brought up in a devout Scottish Presbyterian household and as
Prime Minister he might have done some worthy acts. But all of them weigh
less in the scale of history than his main blunder of supporting the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. His being impervious to the death of hundreds of
thousands of innocent children, women and men, and also British soldiers
mean that he is a war criminal who should be arrested now and put under lock
and key.

THE BRITISH PENSIONER - DIGNITY AND JUSTICE IN RETIREMENT.
The summer edition of the British Pensioner deals with the shortcomings
of the new Bus Pass. If we lived in Gordon Brown’s or Alistair Darling’s
constituency you would be able to roam Scotland free of charge. But in
England a journey by a pensioner accompanied by a Guardian reporter took
four days and 26 local buses to travel from Penzance to Carlisle. If this
was a leap forward for old and disabled people why did
they return by train which took only a few hours?
The British Pensioner is the organ of the British Pensioners and Trade
Union Action Association. Its quarterly journal can be purchased from
Harrry Taylor, 3, Lhen Close, Telford, Salop TF2 8SE. Telephone 01952 271
973. The West Midlands regional co-ordinator is Alan Wilkins, 53 The Hiron,
Coventry CV3 6HS. Tele 02476 502 429.

LABOUR BRIEFING.
Here are two of the most loyal organisations to Labour Briefing
incorporating The Voice of the Unions declaring that Gordon Brown is after
one year in office Desperate and Bankrupt and that his first year in office
is not likely to be followed by another.

THE HENLEY BYE-ELECTION RESULT.
The crowning debacle. The Labour Party finished the election in fifth
place with only 15% of the votes and behind the BMP. Surely there is now no
way back for this foolish man.

CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.
Who owns Wolverhampton? Who controls Wolverhampton? Who’s the Mayor
of Wolverhampton? Who controls and runs the Schools of Wolverhampton. Has
there been a meeting of the Conservative-Lib.Dem Cabinet since May 1st.
None of these question have been answered either by statements in the
Express and Star or by reference to the City website
www.wolverhampton.gov.uk .
We have even had an Any Questions in Wolverhampton where it was
suggested to me that the questions had been rigged, so I emailed the
producer of the programme to ask how the audience was selected and who
decided on the questions. But answers I have had none.
Worst of all we have no idea what most councillors think on the key
political question of the age - the war in Iraq. It is said that this
doesn’t affect local affairs and therefore councillors need not reveal their
views. This is to deliberately deceive the electorate and is one of the
reasons why politicians have become discredited. People not only do not
believe what they say but also what they don’t say.
The politics of Iraq are so important because of the immorality of
those who support the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians not to
mention our own troops, but also at a more mundane level. If the troops were
brought home and expenditure on war ceased, there would be enough money to
finance education, health and hospitals. The only service we can provide is
to bring our troops home - they should never have been there in the first
place.

A MEMORABLE AFTERNOON AT WOLVES.
This is a tale of several people and a number of strands. It begins
with me as 75 years an Arsenal supporter and 45 years a Wolves supporter
after we came from London to Wolverhampton in 1954 for me to teach at
Etheridge Secondary Modern Boys’ School in Bilston. Our original motive for
leaving London was the common idea among southerners that nothing much of
any significance occurs north of Watford and our intention was that we
should spend a few years in the midlands, then a few years further north and
then return to London in our declining years. What cancelled that programme
at the very first stage was my discovery that the boys I taught history to
were sitting above the unique 10-yard seam of coal of the South
Staffordshire coal reverberate to this day.
When a heart attack at age 63 terminated my teaching career I continued
in politics as one of the founding members of Wolverhampton Race Equality
Council and as the century came to an end secretary of an organisation to
unite all sections of Wolverhampton people to be the first in the country to
march, black and white, hand in hand together through the town in a Carnival
celebration of our multiculturalism. The project failed at the last minute
when a black organisation thought we were taking over their Carnival and so
we could not risk a division on colour lines and we had to call it off.
Incidentally, no other organisation in Britain has ever achieved such a
multicultural programme and I live in hope that we in Wolverhampton will
still be the first to produce such a Carnival.
I wrote in retrospect that the two organisations I was most proud of
recruiting was the police, marching with us in agreement with our aims , and
not as is more usual alongside us in a discilpinary role. The second
organisation was the Conservative Party because it meant that had rejected
their support of Enoch Powell. I was greatly surprised when the secretary of
the Tories wrote saying it meant no such thing and he and many of his
members still supported the ideas of Enoch Powell. On the fortieth
anniversary of his ‘river of blood’ speech Powell still exercises a baneful
influence on Wolverhampton while most of us want to consider our city from
the one known as the racist centre of Britain as one pulled up by its own
bootstraps to be the Cultural, Educational, Sporting and Business capital of
Britain 2009.
The failure of the Millennial event left me almost broken hearted and
there then followed a succession of strokes which physically disabled me in
my ninth decade, but I have now found a new outlet for my intellectual
abilities with my BLOG which is now rapidly approaching its 300th addition
and is one of the largest archives in Wolverhampton and the West Midlands on
the history and politics of the area and a unique source of West Midlands
Communist history and anti-racism.
The question is whether the GB Working Class Library and Free Communist
Bookshop will be able to survive my demise and this is a matter under active
discussion which we will put on the BLOG in the next week or so. So much for
George Barnsby. Let us turn to Franks Spittle and his part in this saga.

FRANK SPITTLE.
Frank (and his family) is one of the most distinguished sportsmen in
Wolverhampton. He has always had close ties with Wolves from the time that
he was the first mascot of the club at the age of five. He was also one of
the first to box on the Wolverhampton ground during World War Two. He has
spent his life sponsoring of rifle-shooting in Wolverhampton and is the
passionate advocate of facilities of Olympic standard in Wolverhampton while
the local authority ceased to consult athletes themselves and turned sport
over to Council officials who botched the facilities at Aldersley stadium
.These were at one time of Olympic standard in both rifle-shooting and track
events but now are scarcely fit practice facilities for the games. One of
Frank’s ambition was to see black people take up the sport of shooting and
although he had limited success with this he was proud of the fact that he
got together a multicultural coaching team
Frank was also prominent in the successful attempt to have Percy
Stallard, (Wolverhampton cyclist who revolutionised cycling in Britain by
introducing road racing without which even the French Grand Prix would not
have been possible) and admitted to the Wolverhampton Sporting Hall of Fame.
Cycling is the third sport that Frank and his family participated in and has
the unique record of three generations of his family able to bear the badge
of England on their blazers
My ties with Frank arise from his passionate belief in peace and our
joint efforts in support of Sir Jack Hayward’s patriotic efforts to see that
Wolves remain in English hands instead of being taken over by foreigners
whose main concern is to make profits rather than a genuine love of the game
and its locality.

GRAHAM HUGHES.
And so on to the man Frank was taking me to meet, Graham Hughes, the
keeper of the trophy room and library at Wolves. Graham started us off with
a cup of coffee and was most solicitous for my health over the next couple
of hours. Frank Spittle did the photographing and the first shots were of
my by the statue of Billy Wright the great icon of Wolves football, captain
if its team who won more that 100 caps for England about 80 of them as
captain. After his playing days were over Billy Wright became manager of
Arsenal so here was another link between Wolves and Arsenal. Then there was
Major Buckley and Stan Cullis both managers of Wolves in their glory days
yet rarely mentioned currently when discussing famous managers. Both were
great disciplinarians. Player must be smart at all times. Swearing was
forbidden. Drinking was discouraged and players must be lean and clean at
all times. This was the basis of their success as photos of Cup and League
winning teams year after year are displayed in the corridors of this
magnificent Wolves stadium which is the legacy of Sir Jack Hayward.
I did not know Graham, but he knew me as the Communist who wrote letters
to the Express and Star, which he, and so many other people have attested,
they enjoyed reading all those years ago. Graham had also been an engineer
and a trade unionist, yet another link between us..
I was also pleased to present a copy of my, ‘ I love Arsene Wenger’,
which as well as paying tribute to the revolution he wrought in English
football , not least in training was also a pocket history of Arsenal and
also of Wolves. When I cam to Wolverhampton in 1954, people considered it a
bit of a joke that I should be an Arsenal supporter when the team was in the
doldrums whereas Wolves was the best team in the country. But all that
changed as Arsenal began to win trophies and Wolves started a catastrophic
decline under the Batti Brothers and Wolves were only saved by the purchase
of the ground by the Wolverhampton town council.
It seems to me that we are watching yet a third generation of change as
Paul Ince, once a Wolves player and captain, becomes the first black player
to take over a Premiership side at Blackburn and whose innovative training
methods will make him the first black manager of England as Fabio Capello,
the present English manager who speaks little English and whose politics
favour that of Mussolini and the mafia of Berlusconi is replaced by the
first black manager of England. Will this happen? We shall see.

GEOFF SIDBOTHAM AND JOE DAVIES.
Two other Wolverhampton figures shared my memorable afternoon at Wolves,
even though they were not there personally. The first is Joe Davies our own
‘bobby with a hobby’ famed for his fair organ which is in demand at Wolves
as well as elsewhere in the city. He is well-known to both Rachel Heyhoe
Flint sporting celebrity in her own right as an English woman cricket
captain and also Sir Jack Hayward who is not only an English patriot and
philanthropist but also a leading figure in representing English 2nd World
War veterans in their last years. Joe knows all the organisations of
ex-servicemen in Wolverhampton and I am also interested in the Burma Star
organisation of which Sir Jack Hayward is honorary president, he having been
a glider pilot in Burma. Joe was invited to the Molineux event and would
normally have accepted the invitation but he was involved in an event which
only Joe would involve himself it. Over the years he has been involved with
six other men in community work. Each of them in turn has died so that Joe
is the only one left. Their wives have stayed together over the years and
every so often Joe takes them for a luncheon to a restaurant of their choice
at which Joe gets a free lunch. It so happened that the lunch clashed with
the Wolves event. So it was left to me to give Joe’s greetings to Graham,
who,of course, knows Joe well.
Geoff Sidbothan, the other absent one, has a great uncle, I think it was, called Wykes, who played for Wolves in a cup
competition in which one year they lost and one year they won it. Geoff has
a picture of the losing side and the medal was framed both the front and
obverse of it in golden frame a picture which Geoff says a copy exists in
the Molineux Trophy room which I looked for today but couldn’t find. What
happened to the original medals nobody seems to know, but the actual ball
the cup final was played with is also in the Wolves Trophy Room. Wanderers
Avenue, adjacent to the first pitch Wolves ever played on (and this few peoples seem aware of) had eleven villas named after
the members of the teams and Wykes Villa is one of these houses. Geoff and
his family have had two tours of Molineux in recent years and a couple of
these postcards were taken by Graham as item new to his collections.
One of the conclusions that I came away with is that Graham is a very
competent working class historian of Wolves and their history and the
collection he tends, but also a good general historian. I shall want to
continue to keep in touch with him. Thanks Graham for a magic two hours.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH AND HIS OBJECTIONS TO ‘HONOURS’.
Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours I thought. I get angry when I hear the
word ‘empire’ . It reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of
years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my
forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my
British education led me to believe that the history of black people started
with slavery and that we were born slaves and should therefore be grateful
that we were given our freedom by our black masters. It is because of this
idea that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our
true historical culture. I am not one of those obsessed with their roots,
and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity: my obsession is
with the future and the political rights of all people. Benjamin Zephaniah
OBE - no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs.Queen I am profoundly anti-empire.
Of his fellow blacks who take the Queen’s shilling he writes: There
are many black writers who love OBEs, it makes them feel like they’ve made
it. When it suits them they embrace the struggle against the ruling class
and the oppression they visited upon us, but then they join the oppressor’s
club. They are so easily seduced into the great House of Babylon known as
the palace. For them, a wonderful time is meeting the Queen and bowing
before her presence.
My sentiments entirely and I’m white not black. But I hope Bengy is
wrong about the Poet Laureateship because I don’t necessarily associate it
with the ruling class and I am nominating him for that post and believe that
for him to achieve this post would be as important a breakthrough for blacks
as is Paul Ince’s breakthrough to Premiership football management with the
probability that he will become the first black manager of England or Lewis
Hamilton dominating Formula One racing. Or, Barak Obama for president of
the United States or Osama bin Laden for secretary of the United Nations.

STOP RACE HATE.
Wolverhampton takes a stand against Racism. Mainstream political
parties, faith and community groups and individual across the City made a
public stance against racism at the public launch of the campaign,
Wolverhampton: no place for racism. At the launch at Molineux the then
leader of the Council, Roger Lawrence, said There is no place for people
who seek to divide our society on racist lines. I am proud of the City’s
record on cohesion, but there can be no complacency. Other party leaders
joined with Lawrence and Jez Moxey chief executive of Wolves said that
Wolves had been at the forefront of football’s drive against racism and
particularly the successful Kick Racism out of Football campaign.. There is
much hype to these statements which is not helped by the campaign having a
title which the keyboard of the normal computer has no symbols for. It looks
like a with a circumspect symbol above it followed by a sign rather like
the
symbol for the Euro currency followed by the letters tm. The chairman of the
group, the Rt.Rev Clive Gregory, Bishop of Wolverhampton is an intellectual
bloke, so I think I shall consult him to see if he can explain this matter
as it obviously prevents the campaign from spreading throughout the City.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
It was bound to happen. In my BLOG last night I said that a letter in
the Express and Star last night on Wolverhampton schools was by the
Conservative mayor Christine Mills, whereas in fact it was by one of the
surviving Labour councillors, Christine Irvine.
I can hardly be blamed for such an error when neither Google nor the
Wolverhampton city website can give me the name of the present mayor. The
message is the same and must be transferred from Ms Mills to Ms Irvine i.e.
the letter in the Express and Star defending our schools was splendid. That
Wolverhampton must have its local statistics and not be dependent on
national figures such as Ed.Balls ‘failing schools’. That when the
Wolverhampton Race Equality Council was in existence these local figures
were collected, but the new Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton is not
yet in a position to produce such figures and it is to be hoped that the new
Conservative/Lib Dem coalition will hasten the time when this can be done
and that I hope as the ex-statistician of WREC until a stroke and the
closure of WREC by Sir Trevor Phillips intervened, that I shall have good
relations with those in the education department and throughout the City
administration including that of the chief executive Richard Carr.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

THE TURNING POINT OF WORLD WAR 2 - HITLER’S ATTACK ON THE SOVIET UNION.
I was saddened to think that I appear to be the only person to have
recognised the significance of 22 June 1941 as the day that Hitler attacked
the Soviet Union and thus sealed his fate and the victory over fascism. I
wrote yesterday of my own reactions as a soldier stationed near Canterbury
who attended a church parade where Dr.Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean of
Canterbury gave the sermon to a delighted military congregation even though
it was almost universally thought that the Red Army would be defeated and so
we should continue to be the only country opposing Hitler.
The event was particularly important for Britain. At the outbreak of
war in September 1939 Stalin startled the world by signing a non-aggression
pact as the only way in which the Soviet Union could protect itself against
being attacked by Hitler and the Appeasers of Britain and France. Between
June 1940 when France was crushed and Britain lost most of its equipment at
Dunkirk and 22 June 1941 much had happened. The Appeasers had been routed,
Churchill had become Prime Minister and stirred the nation with his, ‘We
shall fight them on the beaches…we will never surrender’ speech. The blitz
had taken place in which ‘the few’ had made it impossible for Hitler to
invade Britain, but the British Appeasers led by Neville Chamberlain and
Lord Halifax had shown their madness by wanting to assist the Finns by
helping them defeat the Russians, and I remember the call on our daily
orders board for British volunteers who were able to ski to go to Finland .
Winston Churchill was also suspect as a previous enemy of the working class
during the General Strike of 1926. So here was Britain after the fall of
France standing alone against Hitler with nothing but ‘tears and sacrifices’
in Churchill’s words again in sight. And at this point Hitler attacks the
Soviet Union and we Communists were able integrate with the nation in the
long task of defeating world fascism. It was the most significant day in my
insignificant existence.

THE STATE OF WOLVERHAMPTON SCHOOLS.
There is a letter in the Express and Star tonight by Christine Mills
the new Conservative head of Education defending the record of our schools
and contradicting Ed. Ball’s criticism of the large number of ‘failing’
schools which he intend to close and turn into educational Academies,
including six such schools in Wolverhampton for failing to meet a target of
five or more GCSEs including maths and English.
Ms Mills says that no Wolverhampton secondary school has less than 30%
of schools at that standard and the average is 60% making Wolverhampton
schools the 20th most improved schools in the country. The measure to which
Ed.Balls refers in fact only becomes operative this year and our schools
have been preparing themselves for this change and are confident that they
will be able to meet it.
Those wanting to consider how well a school is doing should take a good
look at the ‘contextual added value’ results looking at progress of
children from age 11 which paints a very positive picture of our schools
with none now judged to be failing or under notice to improve.
Ms Mills ends by saying that it must be very galling for all those
working in schools to have this constant drip of negative and misleading
information. This I agree with and makes it all the more necessary that we
should have specific statistics for our community and schools which used to
be provided by the Wolverhampton Race Equality Council until it was closed
by Sir Trevor Phillips and which the new Race Equality Partnership
Wolverhampton (REPW) is not yet in a state to provide. We hope that the new
Con/Lib.Dem coalition will rectify this position forthwith.

A VISIT TO WOLVES AND ITS TROPHY ROOM AND LIBRARY.
Frank Spittle has been as good as his word and arranged for me to go
the Wolves Molineux ground to tread its hallowed turf and meet Graham
Hughes, the keeper of the trophy room and librarian.
I have looked out copies of my ‘ I Love Arsene Wenger’, the work of an
Arsenal fan for 75 years. After praising him for revolutionianising football
it goes on to give a potted history of Arsenal and Wolves, both concerned to
keep football British. During my 55 years as a Wolves fan I used to report
the weekdays matches for the Daily Worker. Since I was not an authorised
reporter I cold not use the press box and my reporting was made from the
terraces and I had to leave before the matches ended to find a public
telephone box and phone London hoping and praying that a goal was not scored
in the closing minutes I had missed. These were the days when Wolves were
the greatest team in Britain and teams they met included Hungary’s Honved
and Russia’s Spartak. I look forward greatly to meeting Graham Hughes and
Joe Davies, our ‘bobby with a hobby and later steam and fair organ pioneer
wishes to be remembered to Graham.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

JUNE 22ND 1941 ATTACK OF HITLER ON THE SOVIET UNION.
Today is the anniversary of one of the most important events of the
20th. century. Operation Barbarosa June 22nd 1941 when Hitler hurled
4.5million Axis troops at the Soviet Union along a 1,8oo mile front.
Wikipedia recognises its importance with a 26 page article on the whole
German-Soviet conflict, but there is no single mention, as far as I can tell
in the Observer this week.
The event was the key event of my political life which began about 1936
with the Duchess of Athol’s book against Appeasement which first roused my
political consciousness and is relevant to this very day when our Mayor is
giving a celebratory dinner to the veterans who saved Britain from Nazi and
Japanese fascism.
The event was so important to me because I was conscripted in October
1939 and took part in a divisional church parade on the Sunday following June 22
when the Red Dean of Canterbury, Dr.Hewlett Johnson, (who had previously been anathema
to people because of his support for the Soviet Union at a time when Stalin
had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler to protect himself from the
chief Appeasers, Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax who wanted agreement
with Hitler to fight the Socialist Soviet Union) preached the sermon to a greatly appreciative military congregation.
After the church parade I was asked by various officers how long I
thought the Russians would last, for it was almost universally believed that
Russia would collapse, and it remains one of the proudest moments of my life
when I could tell them that Hitler had signed his death warrant that victory
in the war was now certain. I was correct, but it was a close-run thing as the
Russians the Red Army and the Soviet people suffered dreadful casualties and
the German conquered most of the Ukraine and were at the gates of
Leningrad and Moscow before winter intervened and the Russians could
recuperate and take the offensive the following spring.
If I can continue the story, it was then that I published a soldiers’
paper, perhaps the first since the Commonwealth period and Cromwell’s
armies, advocating a Second Front in Europe in 1942 called first Red Front
after the German working class paper and then, more moderately, Second
Front. Because of this I was detached from my unit and sent abroad where I
ended up in Burma and India for four years.

PROGRESS OF ‘FIRSTS’.
I have a number of projects which I like to think were originated by me
and on which progress is from time to time made. Take, for instance, my Blog
266 of 26 May which outlined my project of the Irreversible Rise and Rise of
the Ethnic Invincibles. These were: Little Theo Walcott, the fastest
footballer on two legs for a place in England’s football team; Lewis
Hamilton for the Formula 1 World Racing Championship; Osama bin Laden for
the secretaryship of the United Nations; the Rasta man Benjamin Zephaniah
for the Poet Laureate now that it is becoming vacant and Paul Ince for the
managership of England.
On Paul Ince definite progress seems to be being made with Paul being
the first black man to be offered a Premiership managerial appointment with
Blackburn, a jump of at least two divisions. After putting Paul Ince forward
I was most impressed by an article in the Observer which I have subsequently
lost and not even Google can retrieve it for me. It told of his relations
with Roy Keane, now the Sunderland manager, who would phone regularly to
encourage Ince at MKDons. Also the methods of Ince, who, having been the
first black captain of England, took a hands on approach to management not
possible to most coaches and took infinite pains to demonstrate personally
the tactics that he was advocating being on the training ground hours after
the scheduled time. I would like to ask anyone who remembers the article to
tell me who wrote it.
It seems that Paul will be special whatever happens. He will either be
the first man to have taken a non-League team, Macclesfield, into the League
and then progressed through the Championship Leagues to the Premiership
which he states he is willing to do, or else he will be given the post at
Blackburn and progress to the England post at present held by a foreigner,
Fabio Capello, with ties to the Italian maffia.

BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH.
Another on my List of Ethnic Invincibles is the Rasta poet. His
distinctions is that he refused to accept an honour from the defunct British
Empire which exploited, imprisoned and killed its black people. It is
disgraceful that white people should accept such ‘dishonours’ and
inexcusable that black people should. The latest to state that he would not
accept such an award is Ken Livingstone, but we have no idea how many other
people have. So I will ask my MP, Rob Marris, to find out for me. Rob is the
ideal person to ask since he has just been voted by his fellow MPs as the
most efficient and hardworking MP in Parliament despite having a brush with
the law over vaulting across a van to catch a bus to which charges he had to
plead guilty in order not to join the large list of MPs who have been
convicted of a felony. I know from experience, that Rob is an excellent MP
and he is still willing to pursue my case that public servants are obliged
to reply to correspondence from the general public which has now been sent
to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. He is also a decent sort of bloke. Shame
that he supports the war in Iraq!

60 YEARS OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.
I can remember what used to happen before the Health Service. When I
was poorly, my mother used to wrap me in a blanket and take two tram journeys to
St.Thomas’s Hospital where I was seen by a doctor and my Mum then had to go
the Lady Almoner to be questioned about her income to determine whether she
should pay part or fully for medication.
When I left school at 15 in 1934 I and became employed I was entitled to
visit a doctor, but my Mum wasn’t and she went through the London blitz and
the war without free medical attention. Thank goodness for Nye Bevan I hear
you say and I agree. Pity that he became Foreign Secretary and complained
that he was being sent Naked into the Negotiating Chamber, thus aligning
himself with the warmongers against the Russians
.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

MY FIVE DAY WEEK NEARLY STARTED.
Last night I had problems with the computer again and went to bed
convinced that my five day or even four day week had begun. Fortunately come
Saturday morning I found that computers, which I am convinced have minds of
their own, had put itself right..Just in time for a bumper BLOG as you will
see below.

POLICE VIOLENCE RETURNS.
Not only were the two demonstration of last Sunday protesting at George
Bush’s presence in Britain under reported in the British press, but the
treatment of protesters was reminiscent of the bad old days of the past. The
Stop the War Bulletin of 17 June 08 reports that for the first time ever
protesters were denied the right to march peacefully up Whitehall and past
Downing Street where the guests not only included Bush, but also Rupert
Murdoch. Enforcing the ban the police attacked demonstrators with metal
batons. At least three demonstrators received head wounds and many others
were battered and bruised by blows to their arms, shoulders and backs. One
protestor who was hospitalised described what happened. First I was yelled
at to move back from the barrier, but I couldn’t move because so many were
behind me. Seconds later I was hit by a number of policemen and women. It
was a very frightening experience’. Another said, I was here for a peaceful
protest - this was a chance to show George Bush how despicable his war
crimes are. The police were blood hungry - it was absolutely unprovoked’.
To make matters worse the police arrested 25 protestors and held many
of them overnight, charging just three with minor offences. This aggression
marked a new departure in the policing of the anti-war movement. Stop the
War Coalition has formally complained the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith
and requested a meeting. Until we have some resolution of our complaints
Stop the War has suspended relations with the Metropolitan police. Anyone
who witnessed the police attacks are asked to send reports or pictures to
the national office or email stopwar@org.uk Complaints should be sent to
publicenquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
One would also expect the Police Federation to discuss this incident
and issue a public report. Protest would also be expected from the Black
Police officers ‘ organisation.

WOLVERHAMPTON SCHOOLS.
Who knows the true state of Wolverhampton’s schools? Primary schools
are largely owned by church and ecclesiastical authorities which means that
they decide how schools are run but the local authority pays the bills. An
unsatisfactory state of affairs which is being challenged
The Secondary schools give themselves fancy titles such as Sports
academies, or Business ,
or Sciences, or Drama which enables them to recruit from the whole City and
outside instead of sticking to their authorised catchment area. This
disadvantages schools not so designated and leads to a cult of
secrecy whereby the public cannot know to what extent racism exists in the
school or playground and a refusal to publish history and other syllabuses
does not allow the public to decide whether they are ‘fit for purpose’, in
the multicultural world of today .
We once had an organisation to check on these things. It was
Wolverhampton Race Equality Council (WREC) but it was closed at the orders
of Sir Trevor Phillips now chief of the Commission for Equality and Human
Rights who himself has been charged with not being a fit person because of
his support for the war in Iraq.
Wolverhampton now has a new organisation called Race Equality
Partnership Wolverhampton (REPW) which is not functioning properly at a time
when racism is on the increase in some areas and Islamophobia is a sinister
development encouraged by the policies of the New Labour government. It is
absolutely necessary for Wolverhampton to have its own local statistics and
not be at the mercy of statistics which might not have any relevance to
Wolverhampton. Thus our Wolverhampton University is being slandered by
reporting it 113 of a list of about 130 without any discussion of the
economic and racial environment in which it operates. Our schools have also
been attacked by 6 of them being labelled ‘failures’ when two of them have
received glowing reports from the government inspection organisation OFSTED
whilst the headteacher of a third is willing to risk his shirt that his
pupils will meet the targets of 5 GCSEs passes including Maths and English.
The situation is complicated by the political changes that took place
in May when long established Labour rule gave way to a Tory/Lib.Dem
coalition. The fixed point in all this was the chief executive of
Wolverhampton, Richard Carr, who had been appointed, we know not by whom,
to be the chief regeneration officer from a multitude of similar bodies.
This gives rise to the questions of who owns Wolverhampton and who runs
Wolverhampton. This very reasonable question was put to Mr.Carr, but for
some reason he has decided to be pig-headed and not answer me.
But particularly important is the question of the state of our schools.
The government refuses to give relevant information on this, so I set out a
series of questions in a document of 13 November 2006 entitled the State of
Education in Wolverhampton 2006. These question I repeat here, because if
those who are in charge of education were insistent we could collect this
information from our schools, although the government might be annoyed that
we did so. The questions are: What are your selection procedures? ; What is
the ethnic profile of your students and your staff ? ; What was your budget
in the last financial year and who provided the money? ; How many of your
pupils receive free school dinners? : To what extent does your syllabus
reflect the requirements of a multicultural society. We also asked OFSTED to
what extent these matters were taken into consideration in school
inspections. But answers we have had none. We shall repeat our request.

DR. TRAFFORD, HEAD OF WOLVERHAMPTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
We have always insisted that education is the concern of all the people
of Wolverhampton, teachers, administrators, school governors, trade unions
and the children who are being educated. Although myself opposed to private
education, if private schools interest themselves in the location where
they are situated and are prepared to subsidise children from poorer
families and share their lavish facilities with state schools then they are
serving the aim of making Wolverhampton the Cultural, Education, Sporting
and Business city of Britain.
Admirably fulfilling such a role is Bernard Trafford, the head of
Wolverhampton Grammar School with whom I have been friendly for many years.
The foolishness of the Minister for Education in compiling a list of 300 or so
‘failing’ schools including six in Wolverhampton which he will close and be
turned into Educational Academies has been condemned as the work of a man
in a hurry to set his mark on his upward climb towards what - Gordon Brown’s
position?
This has provoked a statement from Dr.Trafford which appeared first in
the Guardian of June 19 and repeated in last night’s Express and Star. He
reviews the statement of Chris Parry, a former chief executive of the
Independent Schools Council to the Common’s Education Committee that there
was an unbridgeable divide between private and state schools. This
Dr.Trafford disputes. The independent sector includes many schools differing
widely from the ‘Toff’ schools of Eton or Harrow, including his own school.
But whenever he opens his mouth as chairman of the Headmasters’ and
Headmistrsses’ Conference he will be labelled a Toff. There are day
schools, former direct grant schools some academically selective, many less
so. There are boarding schools of many types offering stability to children
whose background can’t guarantee it. There are nursery schools,pre-preps,
junior and senior school and specialist schools for children with learning
difficulties. So what about the great divide? We work our socks off to fund
bursaries for less affluent children We work hard to be good neighbours. We
admire what our neighbours in maintained schools achieve and sympathise with
what they suffer from Government intervention.
Trafford served on the Council of the Association of School and College leaders from 1995 to 2006 working with maintained school heads. Returning recently he was shocked to
see that they were dealing with government interference worse than ever.The
latest effort to bring together a host of incoherent funding and
administrative strands will prove as unmanageable as its predecessors. It is
the schools that will bring progress. Most people in the independent sector
share his respect for maintained sector colleagues and contempt for the way
the government micromanages and over-controls. And there is certainly no
cold war, and those who want to create it do us all a deep disservice.
Wolverhampton Grammar School has been a model neighbour integrating
into the school children from poorer backgrounds and also those with
disabilities, and recently encouraged disabled children to take exams one
year sooner than the norm on the grounds that the last year was used for
learning how to pass exams and not for teaching subject matter.
Before becoming head Trafford was a music teacher. He maintains one of
the most accomplished school bands in Britain and also is a first rate
jazz pianist. Last Christmas Bernard Trafford gave me a very special gift - a disc of him and his talented family, wife Katherine and
two daughters Eleanor and Rachel singing Christmas carols and classical
songs, some of them composed by Bernard..
He leaves at the end of this term for a similar post at a larger
grammar school in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He will be greatly missed as a
cultured person and a liberal and talented teacher.
Before he goes we have arranged that he will pick me up and take me to
the grammar school to be introduced to his history staff and to browse
around his library which contains the John Roper collection of books who was
the secretary of the Bilston Historical Society when I first came to
Wolverhampton and also a governor of W’ton Grammar School. I hope to be
able to keep in touch with the new head of the school, particularly in
participating in the investigations of whether the Battle of Tettenhall was
fought at Tettenhall in my back yard or in Wednesfield. This is a key
question for Wolverhampton; it ought to have made 1066AD unnecessary, in
which case we should all be speaking Mercian today instead of the language
inherited from the Normans.
I hope my personal friendship with Bernard will continue and the fact
that his school is situated almost on Hadrian’s Wall augers well for the
possibility of co-operation with his school. I wish him and his family a
happy and productive future.
I look forward to receiving a jazz tape of him and the WGS jazz band before he leaves.
FRANK SPITTLE AND THE WOLVES.
Frank is another of Wolverhampton’s distinguished figures whose diary of
his sporting achievements (and those of his family) has recently placed on
the BLOG. It begins at age 5 when Frank was the first ever Wolves mascot and
continues to this day through Frank’s leading role in the founding of the
Wolverhampton Sports Advisory Council, through to his part in the
successful fight to have Percy Stallard’s name on the Sporting Hall of Fame
and his part in trying to maintain facilities of Olympic standards in Rifle
shooting and track events in Wolverhampton.
Frank has also maintained his connections with Wolves and he asked me
this week if I would be able to make a tour of Molineux and meet the club’s
historian Graham Hughes. Would I Not!!! I am a man whose has been 75 years
an Arsenal fan and 55 years a Wolves fan. So I will have to sort out me
little piece, ‘I Love Arsene Wenger’. This was a potted history of both
Arsenal and Wolves and stressing the efforts of both Arsenal and Wolves
under the great patriot, Sir Jack Hayward, to maintain English clubs
against the tide of foreign ownership exemplified by those who believe that
world and local silverware can only be assured by having foreign owners with
unlimited financial resources.
Another link with Wolves was that I reported Wolves matches for the
Daily Worker, including perhaps the most important match that Wolves played,
their match against Honved. I must also mention that I was a friend of Percy
Young, the distinguished musicologist, lecturer at Wolverhampton College
which is now Wolverhampton University who for some years was president of
the Wolverhampton Race Equality Council. Yes, I greatly look forward to
visiting Molineux and browsing through the books and trophies that Wolves
collected especially when they were the most successful club in Britain.
I look forward to viewing with Graham his books as well as talking
patriotism with him.

NASIR KHAN.
Another friend of mine, Nasir Khan, author of two great books,
‘Perceptions of Islam in the Christendoms’, and ‘Development of the Concept
and Theory of Alienation in Marx’s Writings’. He also has sufficient energy
to post a daily BLOG of which I give an example from this week’s.
It seems that Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this
month which American officials said appeared to be a rehearsal for a
potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. More than 100 Israeli
F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the manoeuvres which were carried out
over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece during the first week of June.
The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to
rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refuelling tankers flew more than
900 miles which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran’s uranium
enrichment plant at Natanz.
Such is the Israeli intention in US provided equipment to strike first,
instead of seeking peace by negotiations .
Nadir’s invaluable BLOG is to be found by simply typing Nasir Khan into
the computer.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES.

WHEN KEN LEAVES.
Ken Purchase the long serving NE Wolverhampton MP has given notice that
he will retire at the next election. That of course, needn’t be until 2100,
but with the plight of Gordon Brown and his New Labourites facing another
dodgy bye-election next week it could be a great deal sooner.
Ken and I have been mates since 1954 when I first came to Wolverhampton
to teach at Etheridge Boys’ Secondary Modern School. He was a member of the
largest working class party in Britain, the Labour Party. I was a member of
the largest working class party in the world, the Communist Party. Ken
progressed from local councillor to MP. I became the historian of the of
the Wolverhampton and Birmingham working class movement. Until recently,
there was no cloud on our friendship, Ken being one of what I call the
immortals - those who voted against the war in Iraq before it started. But
in recent years things seemed to have changed. Firstly, he went on a trip to
Afghanistan at the expense of the taxpayers and came home saying that
British troops should remain in that unconquerable country.
When Ken announced his retirement another story appeared. This came
from someone I still haven’t met who claimed to be close to the labour
movement who suggested that Ken was going to renege as Dennis Turner did who
gifted his safe seat to a foreigner ,McFadden, as well as taking the absurd
title of Lord Bilston and the emoluments that went with it. Our informant
went further suggesting that Ken would pass his seat on to Jack Dromey, the
husband of Harriet Harman, the deputy Commons leader. and would perhaps end
up with Dennis in the Lords.
This required a follow-up so I asked Ken if this was true, but
received no clear response either from Ken or the Constituency officers who
would have to be a party to something that was not permissible under Labour
Party procedures for selection of candidates.
Now, as I have said, the Express and Star has managed to dig out some
very interesting facts. It seems that at least six people will throw their
hats in the ring and hope to be selected. The first is veteran Milkinder
Jaspal who lost his Heath Town seat to a Tory. He was due to be mayor, but
that possibility disappeared with his defeat. His particular incentive is
that he is prepared to take a ?26,000 drop in salary and thinks MPs are paid
too much.
Next is Phil Bateman a former mayor of Wolverhampton who also lost his
seat at the recent election. Phil has been keen to settle whether the Battle
of Tettenhall of was fought in Tettenhall or Wednesfield and was largely
responsible for seeing that the Metro was built. Unfortunately he thought
it could be run without conductors and thus the vandalism of today.
Candidate No3 is a complete outsider, John Cryer who lost his
Parliamentary seat in Hornchurch in 2005, but claims links with the West
Midlands, through his wife Narinder who is from Coventry and has family in
Wolverhampton and Dudley.
Ian Brookfield the fourth candidate lost his seat in 2007. He is
married to Paula who lost her seat in Bushbury in May this year. As far as I
am concerned I do not know either Mr. or Mrs. Brookfield and in particular
I do not know their view on the Iraq war, but this applies to almost every
Labour councillor who stand for office without informing their constituents
of their views on the most important issue in politics today and is in part
responsible for the fact that politicians, particularly Labour ones are not
trusted by people.
Then comes candidate No.5 the man himself, Jack Dromey. As deputy
general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union he was at the
centre of the scandal of the Labour Party donations not being aware of
?3.millions of loans from three people who were subsequently nominated for
life peerages. When approached by the Express and Star about his intentions
he refused to rule out the possibility of standing, but things have since
gone quiet.
The last candidate is an unknown black intellectual Floyd Millen. He
was the first candidate to declare his intentions to stand. He is a local
man who went to Wolverhampton schools and Wulfrun and Bilston Colleges. His
CV lists a former role as adviser to the Metropolitan Police and he is
currently head of policy and communications at the Centre for Economic and
Social Inclusion in London.
So what are we to make of this? Is Ken Purchase exonerated from any
plot to give his seat to Dromey? Who is at present in charge of arrangements
for selection of Ken’s successor? Why are not these people open about what
they are doing so that Wolverhampton people can be sure that everything is
above board?

THE EXPRESS AND STAR AND THE PUBLIC.
I want to continue on the theme of the Express and Star. It is the only
regional paper I know that has opposed the war in Iraq almost from the
beginning. It risked two consequences from this principled stand. One was
that its circulation might decline. The other was that while Bush and Blair
were the most powerful war mongers in the world the paper might be closed
down as giving comfort to ‘terrorists’. Fortunately that possibility
disappeared when the American people voted the Republicans out of office and
replaced them with the Democratic Party, so that the Bush’s capacity to wage
war throughout the world is limited. But it would be better if Bush and
Gordon Brown were locked up, in which case most terrorism would disappear
and the financial savings made would allow our social services to be
properly financed.
Among Express and Star reporters, Peter Rhodes is a senior columnist
whose witty and thoughtful column is one of the main stays of the paper. He
has recently concerned himself with the proper honouring of the Second World
War veterans in which our new Conservative mayor has also taken an interest
and will give a dinner in their honour nominated by the British Legion and
organisations like the Burma Star Association. I am a member of the latter
organisation and certainly Joe Davies, my mate down the road who has given
so much time to the funerals of veterans and support for the ex-service
organisations. He should certainly be invited to the mayoral function. But
the remark of Peter Rhodes that most struck me was that we should honour the
veterans with just a touch of envy that they lived through the momentous
twentieth century and the present generation has known no such destruction
and wars.

A BLOG GONE ASTRAY .
After arguing whether I should go on a five day week with my BLOGS it
is most annoying to find that last night’s effort has disappeared off the
face of the earth. I’m numbering today’s 288 in the small hope that 287 can
be retrieved, but I want to summarise the conclusions from the five items
of last night.
The first was Bush’s visit to London where the No.1 war criminal made
his threats of continuing war against Iraq, threats against Iran, and
almost permanent control of Iraq and its oil. This is the blusterings of a
phantom
man, because for each of these aims he would need to ask for money which
will be denied him by a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party which,
following the views of the majority of the American people are unlikely to
approve such activities. The predicament of Gordon Brown is almost as
serious he having won only by the skin of his teeth the right to detain
‘terrorist’ suspects 42 days facing a Parliament that would not sanction an
extension of military activity anywhere. But for the future of all of us the
sooner that Bush and Brown are arrested as the two main war criminals the
better. Although once a war criminal always a war criminal and Bush and
Brown face the prospect of arrest for the rest of their lives.
The second item on the lost BLOG was the domestic one of Wolverhampton
Wanderers wishing to extend their ground. This will entail agreement of two
parties, the present English owner of the club Steve Morgan and the
Wolverhampton City council who own the pitch at Molineux. Indeed it is also
said that the City council also owns the land on which the stands have been
built. If this is the case, there seems little else for Morgan to own. At a
time when the Council has changed hands from Labour to a Conservative
Lib-Dem coalition it would seem proper to raise the question of local
ownership of clubs as against capitalist ownership which Arsenal advocate
and Wolves degree of public ownership would suggest would be a patriotic
gesture. And in view of the national possibility of a financial crisis would
protect locally owned clubs against the possibility of bankruptcy faced by
such clubs as Man.United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa and
others owned by foreigners who often have not donated the money with which
they ‘bought’ the club, but only loaned it.

A BLOG RECOVERED.
When I learned that my webmaster, Martin George was sunning himself in
Brittany for a fortnight I had resigned myself to the fact that there would
be no more BLOGS for some time. Then a guardian angel appeared who banished
all my troubles. His name is Ian and he is second in command to Martin at
the University. Ian volunteered to come and set things to rights and he did.
It appears that when I send a BLOG to numerous people as I did with
Saturday’s which had items on Al Jazeera, the Dishonours List, the Carriers
of Corruption, Ed.Balls six failing schools of Wolverhampton of which at
least three are flourishing and Making Time to Read any email address that
is incorrect or the computer authorities take a dislike to blocks
everything that come after, so the offending items must be erased or sent
with the proper address, after which ensuing items will be sent. My learning
curve in computer technology continues. But Ian did more. My new printer and
scanner which I cannot operate because I cannot correlate what the buttons
tell me to do with what actually happens, Ian showed me how to do it on the
computer rather than the scanner and thus a giant leap for mankind, or at
least for GB occurred because I am now able to transmit the charges of
corruption which I laid against the BBC, ITV, and newscasters Paxman, Marr,
Wark, Kearney and Jon Snow will now be put to the Ombudsman and other
authorities in both Britain and world wide concerned with combating
corruption.
And at a half past midnight I send this BLOG to have at least an hour’s
serious reading of Simon Heffer’s grim 1,000 plus page biography of that
villain, Enoch Powell entitled, ‘Like the Roman’.