The Barnsby Blog

> Dear Comrades and Friends
>
> The George Barnsby 90th Birthday was highly successful with about 100
> friends and comrades attending. Comrade Nasir Khan, the most influential
> Islamic scholar alive today attended from Norway, messages were read from
> Tony Benn and Eric Hobsbawm, photos were taken by the important regional
> paper the Express and Star, the only paper I know which opposes the war in
> Iraq, Peter Rhodes its main reporter sent me a signed copy of his latest
> book For a Shilling a Day, published by the Black Country Society a
> splendid collection of war experiences and anti-war sentiment from World
> War 1 to Bosnia. Also present at the party was Greg Silvester a Downes
> syndrome athlete with as many world titles as anyone and the only
> Wolverhampton man ever to help carry the Olympic flag across the world.
> Greg now teaches both fit and disabled athletes and this ties up with
> Gordon Jones a Wolverhampton man who featured in the Sunday Observer
> article on Sunday about my 90th Birthday party since Gordon had watched
> the 1927 Cup Final between Arsenal and Cardiff City when the Welsh team
> won and the Cup left England for the first and only time. History is not
> to be repeated as Arsenal won a replay, but Greg and Gordon are connected
> since they both teach teachers of disabled pupils in the University of
> Wolverhampton.

Finally what was perhaps the crowning tribute
> to me was a plaque signed by Rachael Heyhoe-Flint: ‘Very Happy 90th
> Birthday, George, from Sir Jack Hayward OBE - President Wolverhampton
> Wanderers Football Club Rachael Heyhoe Flint OBE Vice President 29th
> January 2009′. What a wonderful tribute! I tried to ring Rachael this
> morning to speak to her personally but couldn’t reach her, so I emalied
> her thanking her for a throw away remark she made about me trying to tell
> Wolves how to run their club which I confess to and will continue to do so
> while football is not brought into the 21st centured with covered stadiums
> and football boots which are more like slippers so that broken toes are an
> epidemic unkown in the days of Billy Wright or Alex James and which will
> only be cured, by toecaps being protected by boots in plastic or light
> modern steels. The necessity for this has been has been emphasised this
> week by a metararsal injury to a Wolves player. These are things that I
> want to talk to players about when a repeat visit takes place organised by
> Graham Hughes, historian of Wolves and keeper of the trophies and Bob
> Jones my old Dudley Technical College teaching colleague who knows every
> one at Wolves and who was the instigator of my getting my Sir Jack and
> Rachael plaque.
> I had quite forgotten that we originally arranged that the meeting should
> go on to a minute after midnight when we could celebrate the greatest
> event in our English revolutionary history - the execution of Charles I
> and we wanted a good recording of the Internationale. But by 10pm it was
> clear that people had had enough and were drifting away, and the historian
> who was to have spoken in Chas I had not turned up. So the faithful few
> remaining, started the usual discordant renderings of the great anthem,
> insisted on singing He’s a Jolly Good Fellow and we all departed.

Esme and I want to thank everyone who came to the party and apologise to
all who we did not talk to sufficiently in the hectic 4 hours of the Party.
We were inundated with cards and gifts some of which have not yet been
opened and may take several BLOGS to acknowledge and thank. So I’ll begin
with the first batch.

From Amy Lawrence comes my Arsenal Emirates shirt with BARNSBY on the back.
Next comes another Arsenal shirt from my son Robert who, it is generally
agreed handled the MCs job so well last night. This is a genuine a replica
of a 1930 shirt with the familiar gun and AFC 1930 on the front and ,
‘BARNSBY 90′, on the back. Then another gift from my other son William who
handled satisfactorily the musical arrangements of the evening which
alternated between traditional jazz, ballroom dancing and folk music which
included a CD of, ‘ The Essential Billy Bragg’ which William gave me. I
shall not only enjoy this when I get round to listening to it, but I’m sure
we shall be able to download for free with COPAM and thus give as much
discomfort to the record industry as COPAM already does to Rupert

Then there was the guest of the evening my good friend Nasir Khan, the
greatest living expert on Islamic matters and whose BLOG is required reading
on the question of Indian and Pakistani relations since the determination
of both of them to annex Kashmir, Nasir’s native country, is the key to
the Asian problem. Nasir gave me a birthday card cementing our comradeship
and mutual desire to work for peace and multiculturalism. He also gave me
a splendid boy of Norwegian chocolite, the country he now lives in, and a
bottle of pirits which we cannot now identify since ot has been mixed up
with the several other bottles of the cup that cheers. A memorable meeting
for me seeing Nasir face to face for the first time anda I believe for him
too.
And that’s all we have time for tunight.

CUBA - A REVOLUTION 50 YEARS OLD.
Cuba celebrates its survival despite 50 years of unremitting hostility
from Bush 1 and all subsequent US Neo-Cons and the best tribute to this
event I have found was by Seumus Milne in yesterday’s Guardian. He writes
that the anniversary has already been the occasion for regurgitation of the
western media of claims of lack of liberty and no dout we shall see the same
when Hugo Chavez celebrates his ten years in office next week, despie the
fact that Chavez attempts to pursuade his countrymen that he should stand
for a third time woul take him outside the USA influence and bring him in
line with France and Britain.
This western response is one which totally fails to comprehend the wave
of Socialist change which has swept away the old reactionary elites and has
brought a string.of radical socialist aand social-democratic governments
into power across the continent from Ecuador to Brazil, Paraquay to
Argentina challenging neo-liberal orthodoxy, breaking down social and
racial inequality, building regional integration and taking back strategic
resources from corporate control. This is the process which saw this week a
Bolivia vote in the land where Che Guevarra was hunted down to adopt a new
constitution that empowers the country’s long suppressed indigenous
population and entrenching land reform and public control of natural
resources after months of violent resistance sponsored by the traditional
white ruling class. It has also seen Cuba brought into the heart of
regional structures against which the USA has strained every muscle to
prevent.
The seeds of this Latin American rebirth were sown 50 years ago in
Cuba. But it is also directly relaped to the regionn’s disastrous
experiences of neoliberalism first instituted by Pinochet and the wave of
mass privatisation, deregulation and mass pauperisation. This was first
resisted by Venezula in 1989 and now the global meltdown of free market
capitalism was first rejected in South America.
Hopes are naturally high that Obama will recognise the powerful
national, social and ethnic roots of Latin America’s re-awekening. The
election of Aymara in Bolivia was as unthinkable as a black President in the
US a few years . But signs so far are mixed Obama making promising statement
about closing Guantanamo , but not to end the stifling 47 year old trade
embargo which almost every country in the world including the USA and
Britain are in favour of ending. But Obama insisted this week that
Venezuala ‘was a force that had prevented progress’, and that Venezuala was
’supporting terrorist activity in Columbia’, apparently based on a spurious
computer disk. Economic progress in Venezuala has been almost as great as in
Cuba where the latter trains less advanced countries doctors in Cuban
hospitals as well as training teachers throughtout the world where its
record is 100% Literacy of both men and women not to mention its sport and
music achievements.
But Cuba needs the help of progressive people throughout the world to
celebrate and deepen its gains and Cuba Si the paper of the Cuba Solidarity
Campaign will advertise all functions, but whose base is the raising of the
blockade on Cuba and the freeing of the Miami Five who have now been
imprisoned illegally in the USA for more than ten years.

VIVE LA REVOLUCION

>

>

COPAM ESTABLISHES ITSELF ON THE EVE OF MY 90TH BIRTHDAY PARTY.
The day before my 90th Birthday and birthday cards and greetings pour
in (I exaggerate only slightly). My present to myself has been COPAM the
first ever electronically convened Conference of Peace and Multiculturalism
which I have inaugurated with a MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES, Barak Obama, something which our predecessors, The International
Working Men’s Association with which Marx and Engels were closely associated
greeted Abraham Lincoln on his election for a second term. The letter
congratulated Lincoln on his re-election and rejoiced that the fight against
slavery would now continue in America. Lincoln replied to this letter
stating that he was honoured to have received the votes of the American
people and hoped that he could be worthy of the trust given by the US
electorate and would be even more determined to pursue this crusade knowing
that the working men of Europe were supporting him. The rest is history.
Lincoln was assassinated and the fight against slavery put back for
generations.
The similarities between the 1860s and today are clear. If Obama is
assassinated then his Vice President Joe Biden will take his place and the
folly of Obama is that he chose a racist and supporter of the war in Iraq as
his running mate, so that all the vast expectations of radical change would
disappear and the movement for peace and multiculturalism will be set back
again for generations, if indeed man survives the holocausts which Bush and
Blair started with their Nuclear Policies. We want no repitition of history,
so we have sent an identical letter to Obama as the IWMA sent to Lincoln and
have asked him for a reply.
The key players who support my initiatives are very influential indeed.
One is Tony Benn, the key feature of whose life has been honesty and
integrity. Not for one moment was he fooled by Tony Blair and New Labour
and knew that New Labour was the betrayal of Socialism. He writes: ‘HAPPY
BIRTHDAY. Thanks for all the BLOGs you send. Rupert Murdoch must be worried.
The New Technology has made you an editor of power and influence. Please
keep going. We need you more than ever. I raise my cup of tea to celebrate
this memorable day. Tony’. So there’s my cue to continue with COPAM.
The next greeting is from Eric Hobsbawm. Eric has the distinction of
being a Jew who combated Hitler from the day he was allowed to take power in
1933 to the day the world was rid of him in the Berlin bunker with the Red
Army looking for him. Eric is also our finest living Marxist historian. A
friend of mine for many years we were the two who never resigned from the
CPGB at the time of the Stalin disclosures, reckoning that it was the
traitors and psychopaths who betrayed Communism and not the reverse. Eric
writes ‘Dear George.I’m more mobile than you, but I won’t be able to come to
Wolverhampton on the 29th, so I will have to be a part of your ‘world-wide
party’. In any case I salute your 90 years. Us few oldsters need to keep in
action until some youngsters come along. Best wishes, Eric Hobsbawm’. I’m a
lucky man to have two such friends as these. Now I’m waiting for the CPB
people to come up with Socialist greetings from Fidel Castro, Hugo Shavez,
Evo Mores and others. Will they manage it? I’m sure they will..

PETE SEEGER AND A NOBEL PRIZE.
A notice from Pam Bishop (who looks after the Charles Parker Archive
at Birmingham Central Library) tells us that Pete has been nominated for a
Nobel prize by Barbara Lee, Congressional Representative from the 9th
District California. They want us to provide specific examples of how Pete
participated in work for Peace, social justice and environmental movements.
Send you examples to, Pete Seeger Nomination, Rep Barbara Lee (CA-09) 1301
Clay St. Ste., 1000-N, Oakland CA 94612. Phone 510-763-0370 ext 16, fax 510
763-6538. Wayne dointern23.ca09@mailhouse.gov There is need for haste as
nominations close on Feb 1st.
Pam continues that a petition to nominate Pete has grown to 21 thousand
signatures. Go to www.nobelprize4pete.org to see what moving and sincere
comments people have made about how Pete opened their consciousness in so
many ways. Pam wants to keep the Petition open until the end of the year so
that the final document is sent to the Smithsonian Institute or wherever
Pete’s archives will eventually be housed. Pam’s intention is not to make
Pete a hero. It has to do with creativity and community. An understanding
that the arts are not a frivolity nor a means for fame and entertainment
but for deepening the meaning of civilization. The ‘music biz’ has
distorted our interpretation of culture and this campaign is a way of
correcting this. Pam has much more on how the Seeker campaign can be
supported by starting a local folk group, writing folk songs and goodness
knows what else and I am sure that CORAM can play a part in this.

IF FOLK
BE THE MUSIC OF LOVE - PLAY ON/

COPAM AND MY 90TH BIRTHDAY PARTY.
This is the penultimate day of my being 89. Both Esme and I are
exhausted. We have done as much as we can to attract the finest
representatives of Peace and Multiculturalism from around the world.. In the
wise words of my son Robert we have done our best and whether their are
hundreds at the party or just the faithful few the only thing to do now is
to relax and enjoy ourselves

SIZING UP OBAMA
Much as we would all love to love the new Black American President,
this BLOG was the first to point out that he was in hock to American Neo-con
capitalist interests, one of the first to point out that he continues to
countenance the mass murder of blacks in all the current wars waged by
capitalist countries; the first to point out that if he were assassinated
his Vice-President , Joe Biden the supporter of the wars in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Palestine etc. would take his place and such was the
expectation of all who wanted radical change that there would be
revolutionary risings throughout America and no one could say what the end
might be.
Black imperialists have always existed. They used to be called
Uncle and Aunty Toms who received preferential treatment as long as they
diverted black people away from the basic task of ending slavery.
Unfortunately they exist in even larger numbers today as those who accept
OBEs and MBEs from a now non-existent Empire but which in its existence of
several centuries butchered and enslaved at least many million blacks. Why
is it
that only people like Benjamin Zephaniah who refused such baubles with
contempt and militants such as Darcus Howe (see his article in this week’s
Voice) can understand this.
However, I came across the definitive criticism of a journalist in
today’s Guardian, Richard Seymour, whose article is headed Obama the
Imperialist. He argues that Obama is in the classic liberal democratic
interventionist mould. Committed to escalation and hostility to Iran. In his
first week in office he has sanctioned two missile attacks in Pakistan
killing 22 people including women and children. Liberal Imperialists arguing
for intervention on ground of humanity or that western society is the most
advanced form of society and mother knows best. I am very pleased to
welcome Richard who meets COPAM’s criterion that only people with a public
record of being opposed to the war in Iraq are eligible for admission.

THE VOICE.
This weekly, the most influential publication of the African-Caribbean
Diaspora has two
items that caught my eye particularly. The first is that the strength of
discrimination can be gauged by how too few public appointments are
advertised in the VOICE. I have taken this up with comrades at Birkbeck
College, one of our most radical institutions which informed me that
advertising posts was so expensive that they must advertise in journals
which give best results and these are invariably the Times and the Guardian.
But they took my point that this was racism and would mend their ways. But
the ratio of public appointments is still less that 2 in the VOICE to
between 12 and 14 pages in the capitalist papers.
The second item was the result of such discrimination and noted that
Ethnic Media Group which published both the New Nation and the Asian title
Eastern Eye had become victims of the Depression and had closed their doors.
One spokesman said that the New Nation suffered from falling circulation
and advertising revenue It is important that we have a strong black media.
Steve Pope, editor of VOICE added that public organisations pay lip service
to equality and diversity but refuse to advertise in the black press. This
BLOG has led the way in highlighting this problem and I am prepared to lead
a campaign to see that there is a copy of VOICE in every school and College
in Britain because this is not a problem of Blacks, but of we Whites.

THE STATE WE ARE IN.
Still the monster Brown is about instead of being under arrest for mass
murder. Still David Cameron believes he is going to be the next Prime
Minister although Brown and the Nuclear Maniacs may have destroyed the
world
through their Nuclear Madness and Cameron supports this madness. Even if the
world survives Cameron will be found guilty of supporting the war in Iraq
and he is therefore an accessory after the fact with Brown.
Our educational system ranks lower than ever . In Dec 2007 out of the
top 25 countries we
stood 17 for reading, 24 in maths and 14 in science How are the mighty
fallen ! In sport our last Olympic game record was an improvement, largely
due to ‘minor’ sports such as swimming and cycling . But in football, the
crowning glory of Britain who invented the game, our clubs have been sold
down the river to foreigners and prospects for our leading teams looks dire
as the credit crunch bites.. More of this in our next issue

SIR TREVOR PHILLIPS THE RACIST.
His latest statement has roused the usual controversy of the
suitability of this man to lead a racial discrimination body if he won’t
even
say whether he supports the war in Iraq or not. Once my 90th Birthday on
Thursday is over I shall make a renewed attack on all those who refuse to
reply to me and it goes a high as the British civil service and as low as
that silly man the Wolverhampton chief executive who finds himself in the
twin position of seeing that complaints are attended to but refuses to
respond to complaints against himself.

FIGHT RACISM WHEREVER IT IS TO BE FOUND

THE POXON PLAN TO SOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS..
I last saw Gordon Brown that phantom man and Nuclear Maniac with a
sheaf of notes in his hand ordering our Wolverhampton man, Mervyn King,
Governor of the Bank of England, to print billions of pounds because he
hasn’t two pennies of his own to rub together,. These he will give away to
banks such
as Northern Rock, who will say thank you very much and continue not to allow
customers to borrow, will continue to give the money to their board members
and executives in scandalously inflated salaries and expenses and thus make
the Slump worse, increasing house dispossession and increasing unemployment
near to the 3 million mark and the complete bankruptcy of Britain. And all
this from the man who ought to be under lock and key, for his nuclear
madness which threatens to destroy the planet.
So, we ordinary folk are left to find a solution that benefit the poor
and not the rich.
And Nigel Poxon, master butcher of Henwood Rd. Wolverhampton knows what
the solution is. It is to give every, man woman and child in Britain
?million each which they will promptly spend like mad and factories will
increase production instead of closing and the crisis will end. So, we ask
all our readers - demand you ?million pounds NOW before Brown is allowed to
destroy the world.

CORRUPTION IN PARLIAMENT.
Apart from the fact that Brown is still at large instead of on bail for
crimes against humanity there is the question of the leader of the
Conservative Party, David Cameron, hoping to slip into Brown’s shoes when in
fact he supports the war in Iraq and probably replacement of Trident which
makes him a party to the Nuclear Maniacs. The Tories are beginning to twig
this and have brought back dear old Ken Clarke who is one of my ‘immortals’
who opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. He may be only Business
Minister at present , but is hardly worth his while coming out of retirement
for that and his eyes are no doubt set on being Prime Minister. And how
that would increase Britain’s standing in the world and pressurise the new
American president, Obama, from playing silly games in Afghanistan where he
is planning to increase US troops and ask the Americans to expect that more
of them will die.
Wolverhampton has had its share of corruption with Dennis Turner
sitting on his safe seat, accepting the ermine and grand expenses attached
to the House of bleeding Lords and giving it up to Pat McFadden, a foreigner
knowing nothing of Bilston traditions and a creature of Brown and Blair who
was quickly rewarded with a ministry without there being either an
opportunity for any other candidate to apply for the seat or an election.
This is corruption on the grandest scale and I have asked my MP, Rob Marris,
to take the matter up with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
which he has done although we have heard nothing so far and it is time we
asked for progress.
Just as important was the fact that Ken Purchase, another friend of
mine, gave notice that he would be retiring at the end of this Parliament
and it looked as if Ken would do the same thing as Turner and wangle
Harriett Harman’s husband, Jack Dromey into the seat. I was very relieved
tonight to learn from another friend of mine, Peter Rhodes of the W’ton Express and Star , that this was
not the case and Peter had scooped all others by having an interview with
the successful candidate in a ballot to be the prospective candidate for
Wolverhampton NE. Her name is Emma Reynolds and this seems good because
there are too few women in Parliament. Rhodes, a most sagacious observer of
the Wolverhampton scene says that in a world dominated by fat-bottomed ,
middle aged men in dark suits, this willowy, self effacing Oxford graduate
has become the Labour candidate. This is all the more remarkable as it seems
that she has never contested a single election, nor been a Labour candidate.
She was lucky in being in the right place at the right time for if Brown had
called a snap election in 2007, Dromey would probably have gained the seat
and Emma would have continued being a low-profile, parliamentary adviser to
Cabinet Minister Geoff Hoon. She was educated at a state Comprehensive
School, Codsall High, and was one of only two girls who won places at
Oxford. She studied Philosophy, Economics and Politics and read a lot of Marx.
She said we can learn from Marx, but that she was not a Marxist. We can
learn from today’s ‘commodity fetishism’ when people become so obsessed
with buying consumer goods that the objects actually control the people.
That’s not far from the position today when people live to buy.
After University she worked in Brussels and had a close view of how the
European Union worked. It was only then she joined the Labour Party and
helped Rob Marris in Enoch Powell’s old seat of Wolverhampton SW, and she
says she enjoyed working in what was then, and still is, a marginal seat.
I’m surprised that Peter Rhodes did not question her on the most crucial
matter of all, the war in Iraq, and it is that I shall question her on and
whether she qualifies for COPAM the first electronically convened
Conference of Peace and Multiculturalism whose sole proviso is that its
members oppose the war in Iraq. We in COPAN will welcome her and hope she
will help make Wolverhampton, the greatest Cultural city in Britain.

MY 90TH BIRTHDAY PARTY.
As my great day approaches the family worry about who will come, so we
are sending out a reminder. It will go to everyone I circularised in the
first function of COPAM, which was a massive circulation from my address
book of a Letter to the President, Barak Obama. I had asked my webmaster,
Martin George if he could provide me with a paper copy of my address book,
which is now so large that manipulating the computer to find all the
addresses is so time consuming that I only ever get more than about a
quarter of all addresses on a document. . Martin George, my splendid
webmaster found a way of doing this and left me to download it. But each
page contained only 5 or 6 names so that when I began the process the
printer went on and on and on, and when it was completed I had 106 sheets.
Clearly a case of the remedy being worse than the problem. But I shall
provide my son Robert with each of the pages ticked for the names I want to
include and will thus have a chance to erase those whose names I never use,
or who have moved or died or even names which have no knowledge now of who
they are. And all this to be able to press the magic button entitled,
‘reply to all’. The interim result of this exercise is that the message you
will receive from me might contain a whole page addresses before you get
down to the message, which is already too long for my liking as I like to
keep it within two pages.
With that preface I can get down to the latest developments, some of
which are very sad. For instance Joe Davies will not be at the party. Marge,
his wife, has suddenly become blind and on the 29th will be in New Cross
Hospital having three cataracts and other obstructions removed from her
eyes. So we will have no barrel organ at the Party to which they were both
looking forward. Then on my daily walk to the other end of Henwood Rd. I
was astounded to see that Larry Patton had a notice on his house For Sale.
Larry is a Geordie who was an accomplished footballer in his youth. One day
I asked him why he was such an avid supporter of Manchester United and he
said that it was because he was badly treated by Newcastle United as a young
man. Larry told me a horrifying story. That he had been in hospital and had
cancers removed and that he was moving to sheltered accommodation where he
has frequently played his portable piano for charity., and this is a logical
conclusion that I might consider for myself one day. For Larry and his wife
Jean will be in sheltered accommodation in the highly regarded James Beattie
House in the middle of Wolverhampton where they can keep in touch with
friends and relations. All who know the couple will wish them all the best.
Then there was a third tragedyFrank Spittle who knows more about local sport than anyone else. He and his family have represented England in at least three sports also well known at Molineux and it was he who arranged my first
visit to the Wolves ground at the invitation of Graham Hughes, the historian
of the Wolves and keeper of the trophy room. I knew that Frank had been in
hospital, but assumed that he was improving, but I was staggered to learn
from his wife Brenda that he was much worse and there were fears for his
life. Again I was devastated.
But today there was also much good news. Several people commentated on
the two interviews I had on Friday. I thanked Amy Lawrence for the Sunday
Observer article linking the 1927 cup final when Cardiff defeated Arsenal
in the Cup final, which has now proved an on-going saga as Arsenal could
only draw with Cardiff on Sunday. I am now toying with the idea that I
might travel to London if I had an invitation to tour the Emirates and a
chance to see Arsene Wenger. We shall see if my health holds up.
On the Express and Star interview, Peter Rhodes apologised for it
being a short article but that it would be put on both my email and website
as a permanent record.
It was then that I had the greatest pleasure of the day when Bob Jones,
who I used to teach with at Dudley Technical College appeared with a large
bottle of whisky as a birthday present and the news that he would be at the
party and that as a confidante of Graham Hughes he would tackle my three
main problems with the Wolverhampton visit. The first that I should wear a
Wolverhampton shirt at the party. Two that Rachael Heyhoe-Flint drops in at
my party or sends greetings and that Sir Jack Hayward also sends
greetings. I think that Graham will be able to fix it and with no
blizzards forecast that we all shall be able to enjoy the evening and
contribute to.

WOLVERHAMPTON THE GREATEST CITY OF CULTURE, EDUCATION,
SPORT AND BUSINESS IN BRITAIN

.

ME, PETER RHODES, AND THE EXPRESS AND STAR.
On Thursday I was interviewed by Peter Rhodes, the main correspondent
of the Wolverhampton Express and Star. It was printed tonight and was a
thoroughly competent professional job which I asked him to put on my BLOG so
that it goes around the world.
The fact is that the Express and Star opposes the war in Iraq and
their reporters with them and this has been a courageous act, because if
Blair had won the war in Iraq, the equivalent of the USA Patriot Act might
well have been passed which would have destroyed the freedom of the press in
Britain as surely as it was destroyed in the USA. The paper also has
problems with the present Credit Crunch and it is hoped that a paper which
opposes the Iraq war survives.
My relations with the paper and Peter Rhodes have ranged from total
opposition to a present warm friendship and the whole story needs to be
told.
When Esme, my wife, and I came to Bilston it was a town we had never
heard of and I was planted on the head of Etheridge Secondary Modern Boys
School by an Education Officer of SE Staffs who fiddled with his golf
clubs during my interview who would have engaged anyone with qualifications,
let alone a teacher with a degree from LSE and a teaching qualification, so
hard up were they for teachers. So the head of Etheridge had foisted on him
myself with no idea what he was letting himself in for. And there began a
regular flow of letters to the Express and Star which they printed. There
were two sides to the deal however. My letters brought anti-communists
foaming at the mouth demanding that I go back to Russia, a country I had
never visited then, and the circulation soared. This continued to 1956 and
beyond to the invasion of Czechoslovakia when even the most sectarian of
Communists realise that there was something wrong with Communism and left
the Party in droves. But I never did, believing that the Party had been
taken over by dictators and psychopaths and it was they and not the
doctrines of Marx and Engels that were at fault.
Our intention on leaving London was to go to the Midlands for a few
years since southerners tend to think that nothing much of importance
takes place north of a line from Watford. Then try the north for a few
years
and then to go back to London to retire. This plan failed at the first
hurdle when I discovered that the kids I taught history to sat on top of the
unique 10 yard seam of coal which gave it its name. So I became a historian
of the Black Country and later an archaeologist whose proudest moments were
when I took Bilston kids to dig on the Roman road leading into
Wolverhampton insisting that the C and D streams participated as much as the
A and B streams
This is the background to my encounters with Peter Rhodes the Express
and Star reporter. The first clash came when he was appointed to foreign
correspondent for the paper and I suggested that he had never been abroad
and he wrathfully pointed out what awards he had been given.
We drew closer together on the question of the history of the paper
which both he and I knew started life as a liberal paper, being one of the
British newspaper started by the US -Scottish philanthropist and ironmaster,
Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie’s philosophy was that the only point of making
money was to return it to the community. Thus his charitable works. I urged
this doctrine on the Conservative proprietors of the paper who have
steadfastly refused while there were profits to make, but when there are
none, as with today’s Slump a co-operative solution might be the only one if
the
solution of the crisis advocated by our Henwood Rd. butcher, Nigel Poxon is
adopted of giving every man, woman and child ?1million each and the workers
at the paper spend their money rescuing the paper and their jobs!
During the Thatcher years my relations with Rhodes reached their nadir
at the time of Peter’s greatest triumph. This was the anticipation of Rupert
Murdock’s scheme to outwit its trade unionists and print papers by
non-union labour. So one night the plant in Wolverhampton was shut down and
the paper manned by scab labour was printed elsewhere and trade unionism
banned. Later on a Labour government made it illegal to ban trade unionists,
so some people remain trade unionists although the company must be
considered a non-union one.
My relations with Peter improved once more with the story of Ivan Gandy
who escaped from German
prisoner-of-war.camps no less than three times. Not always to the
encouragement
of his fellow prisoners who were punished for allowing him to escape. The
third time he was in a Polish camp and was liberated by the Russians and
rode
on their tanks from Poland to Berlin. He therefore had an unprecedented view
of the Nazi soldiers fighting to the last man and crack Russian regiments
who
were high with vodka and would, in my view justifiably rob and pillage and
rape every German woman in revenge for their vile treatment of Russian
women.
Ivan Gandy wrote a book of his exploits after the war, whose title
eludes
me at the moment. There was a fire at the premises where it was printed and
every book was burned except one which is in the hands of Peter Rhodes. Both
Ivan and his wife insisted that no publicity be given to his wartime
experiences, but now that they are both dead I shall raise the matter with
Peter as to whether the Express and Star might reprint it.
Our next encounter was on revelations that Polish and other Eastern
Europeans had been admitted to Britain without any of the screening that was
demanded by the war agreement of the allies. This pointed the finger at
Wolverhampton where tens of thousand Poles and other East Europeans made
their homes in Low Hill and found lifetime employment in Goodyear’s tyre
works and in factories of the town as well as the buses. Certainly some of
them must have been the Nazi prison guards and torturers in the
concentration camps of Hitler. It transpired that none of the refugees who
settled in Wolverhampton had ever been examined and none ever charged with
war crimes. By now most of them will be dead, but the fact that they were
allowed to live here, leaves an indelible stain on the reputation of
Wolverhampton
This brings us to the modern question of refugees both legal and
illegal and the commemoration by Hungarians of the fiftieth anniversary of
1956 and even more recently the nationwide commemoration of the Holocaust
all of which events Peter has reported with total integrity .
Peter Rhodes article on January 15th was on a meeting in Wolverhampton
University on the Holocaust with one of the last survivors of the prison
camps. Steven Franks spoke of the six million Jews who perished in the
Holocaust and Anne Frank who died just 15 but whose life lives on in her
Diary. Peter asked how could a man who had seen such suffering forgive. He
said it was most difficult but those responsible were now in their eighties
and nineties and one can only hope that they feel some guilt. If your soul
wants peace you have to let bygones be bygones. Otherwise the pain is like a
cancer. I also have no heart to punish those so old, whatever the evil they
committed, but the least one can do is to struggle for peace. So I end my
BLOG tonight with a slogan given me by Russell Brand who behind every
outrageous quip has a hatred of war and love of peace and says

DON’T. WASTE. A. SECOND.

GORDON BROWN ATTEMPTED TO DESTROY THE PLANET YESTERDAY BUT HE’S STILL HERE
GRINNING INANELY SO HE’S GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER TRY
TODAY
The three main objectives today are to put Brown under lock and key
before his Nuclear Madness destroys us all. Secondly to stop the wars Brown
supports and thirdly to build a multicultural world. The first is the
responsibility of politicians and what a hash they are making of it. So
others must take on that responsibility. The contribution of this BLOG has
been to create an organisation called COPAM or a Conference of Peace and
Multiculturalism which is being convened electronically, and is the first
and largest in the world to be so convened. It operates as from NOW and its
first personal gathering will be on my 90th Birthday Party on Thursday 29
January at the Wolves FC football ground to which all who know me are
invited with only one proviso - they must be opponents of the war in Iraq.
How many will be there we do not know. Just turn up, between 7pm and
midnight. Come to stay or drop in for an hour or two, you will certainly
meet representatives of the Socialist world such as Cuba and Venezuela and
we hope also representatives of Culture, Education, Sport and Business, but
if you come late you may find the refreshments have run out!.

A MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
These are stirring times we live in. The inauguration of the president
began with a concert and 2 million people are estimated to have assembled to
hear his inaugural speech. We wish the new president well, a black
president is indeed the most revolutionary act of America since the founding
fathers first broke away from the British Empire. But COPAM has already
discovered what might indeed be the last and fatal act of his Presidency by
choosing as his running mate Joe Biden a racist and Iraq war supporter. The
American constitution lays down that on the death or disability of a
President he should be succeeded by his Vice-President. Such is the
expectation of radical change built up, but the assassination of presidents
is, unfortunately all too common. But as Michael Moore one of the fiercest
US opponents of the Bushs’ and Neo-Cons says, Obama is not only black,
but a kind and gentle man from the ranks of the US working class and it
would be a tragedy of the magnitude of Gordon Brown destroying the planet if
Obama were assassinated. We of COPAM join with Michael Moore in suggesting
that when Obama takes the oath we make one with him to work even harder for
Peace and Multiculturalsm.
To this end we have revived a custom of the world working class
movement of the time, the International Working Men’s Association, with
which Marx and Engels were closely associated. The message to Abraham
Lincoln from the general council of the IWMA, W.R.Cremer, a carpenter and joiner, begins, We
congratulate the American people on your re-election with a large majority.
If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first
election, the triumphant war cry of your second election is Death to
Slavery. The reply of the President came through a letter addressed to the
Editor of the Times who said that some weeks ago a congratulatory address of
the IWMA to Mr.Lincoln was received. This address was transmitted through
the United States legation and the following reply has been received. In so
far as the sentiments expressed are personal they are accepted by him with a
sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy
of the confidence which has recently been extended to him by his
fellow-citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity throughout the
world. Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare
and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse and example. It is in
this relation that the United States regard their cause in the present
conflict with the slavery maintaining insurgents as the cause of human
nature , and they derive new encouragement to persevere knowing that this cause
is favoured with the enlightened
approval and earnest sympathies of European working men. I have the honour to be , Sir, your
obedient servant Charles Francis Adams.
I would suggest that this message be sent unaltered to Barak Obama who
faces exactly the same problems and expectations today. The parallel with today is clear Lincoln was assassinated and Adams became President. This must not be allowed to happen with Obama and the warmonger Biden.

OUR 700TH EDITION.
Amid the national excitement of further progressive measures by Obama,
such as shutting the network of CIA ghost prisons and banning rendition and
torture and my personal excitement of having two important interviews one
with the local paper, Express and Star, the other with the national
newspaper the Observer, I’ve had neither space nor time to celebrate the
700th issue of my BLOB. This is now a vast archive of national and regional
history, together with Communist regional and local history which is now
read regularly by a growing number of militants and a large but unknown
number of people who visit it occasionally.
I was one of the first people who utilised a BLOG set up for me by
Martin George, my close friend and webmaster, and my other comrade,
who has kept the BLOG going for me and has aided me for very many years,
Bob Hazlehurst.
I have always regarded the Internet, an invention almost entirely due
to Americans, as the most important source of democracy which has enabled
me to bring the high and mighty of the official world to book. I have
personally established that if public figures are addressed by me or any
other member of Joe Public they are constitutionally obliged to record the
acceptance of a communication, obliged do what they can to attend to the
complaint or suggestion and must reply within a proscribed time.
Those who do not adhere to these procedures are breaking the law and
liable to the penalties of the law. During this period I have been
too busy to pursue these miscreants, so this is a good opportunity to summarise
the present position and say what I am doing to bring them to book.
First is the Government and its civil servants who are the basic source
of racism in Britain . Then there is the opposition led by David Cameron
who dreams of being prime minister, but supports the war in Iraq and refuses
to reply to my correspondence. Then there are all those bigots and racists
who closed the first multicultural college in Britain, Bilston Community
College which with one third of its staff and one third of its students of
ethnic minority origin, totals never before or since achieved by any
educational institution in Britain This is the greatest crime committed by
the government, Blunkett and all those who helped to close BCC. They include
the three bad apples at Wolverhampton University who aided this crime
including the Clerk to the governors, and the previous VP and the man who
was knighted by Tony Blair for allegedly transforming Northicote School when
it was neither as bad as was claimed when being the first school to be ‘put
into measures’ by OFSTED nor as good as he said it was when he claimed to have
turned it round and then abruptly resigned. He is now Dean of the School of
Education at W’ton University and insisted on recommending the principal of
Wolverhampton College, Jane Williams, when the whale of BCC was merged with the tidler of
Wulfrun College be recommended for an honorary degree of W’ton University
when she had left the so-called City College with several complaints of
racist conduct which were never answered. This proposal had to be approved
by the Board of Wolverhampton University , who thus became implicated as
supporters of the closure of BCC. This series of illegal offences will be
rectified in the near future we are sure.
Then there are the Lords of the Fourth Estate, Paxman, Marr, and John
Snow etc. who refused to question Blair on the war in Iraq thus allowing him
to cling to Bush’s coattails and support the war in Iraq
I’ll finish tonight with a case that will be persued immediately, the
case of Sir Trevor Phillips who no bla person believes he is fit to be in
charge of national race organisations because he believed that the war in
Iraq ‘was not within his remit’ and refuses to answer the charges. But Race
Relations are too important for there to be a rift between him and the
Community, so this campaign will begin forthwith.

WOLVERHAMPTON - CITY OF CULTURAL, EDUCATIONAL, SPORTING AND
BUSINESS EXCELLENCE.

STOP BROWN BEFORE HE STOPS US.
As we have said in this BLOg often enough. The most important matter in
the world today is whether this planet can survive or whether it will be
destroyed by Gordon Brown, the most important war criminal in the world now
that Bush has retired to his ranch and Blair has contaminated the Roman
Catholic Church and devoting himself to the most depraved of occupations
which is to turn himself into a billionaire through books and lectures and
accepting directorship from firms who support the war in Iraq.
This leaves Brown and his cabinet of New Labourites as the man liable to
destroy the planet with his nuclear power stations becoming dangerous from
lack of repairs which now cannot be done because no private firm is willing
to undertake them and Brown’s criminal determination to make Trident
renewal the keystone of his foreign policy with the danger that his
policies will lead to a new Holocaust and we shall all be killed and the
planet disappear with us.
It is to be hoped that Obama prevents this with a policy of nuclear
disarmament, but this will not take place overnight which is why Brown must
be locked up NOW so that we can all sleep safely in our beds.

TWO INTERVIEWS FOR GEORGE BARNSBY.
This has been a most important day for me. My 90th birthday is being
celebrated on Thurs the 29th of this month at a birthday party which I hope
will see the birth of the first electronically convened Conference of Peace
and Multiculturalism.
The first interview of the day was with Amy Lawrence, one of the few
women football reporters and who I want to recommend as the first woman
Reporter of the Year. She came at 11-45am and so tight was her schedule in
dropping her young son at his nursery and returning to pick him up before
the nursery closed that I am now recommending her as a model feminist which
is appropriate in the year when women have been nominally equal with men but
there is still a great gulf between the intention and reality.
Amy and I have been friends ever since I learned that she was an
Arsenal fan who lived near the Emirates Stadium then being built for
Arsenal. I told her of how I became an Arsenal supporter when playing
football on Clapham Common in a red shirt when a passer-by called ‘Up
Arsenal’ and so I came to be an Arsenal fan. Amy also had a strange
tale to tell of how she became an Arsenal fan.
In the past few year I have belonged to the Arsenal Supporter Trust and
when I noticed that life membership was only ?200 I sent my money straight
away. One of the attractions to me was that Arsenal led the way in insisting
that Arsenal should remain a British team and in that respect were joined by
the great Wolverhampton born patriot Sir Jack Hayward, who although he has
now sold the club (to an Englishman) is adamant that it should remain
British.
When I knew Amy was coming to Wolverhampton I asked that an official of
the Arsenal Trust meet with Amy to discuss my two main concerns which were.
Firstly it looks as if the Trust is compromising Arsenal’s Britishness by
inviting foreigners on to the board whose intention is to buy up the club.
Second that the only way to bring football into the 21at century in the days
of global warning is to roof over stadiums and I asked the Trust to produce
a estimate of how much it would cost to roof over the Emirates. Ken Friar an
Arsenal director said he would do that, but so far he has not yet produced
it. Unfortunately there was no time for Amy to contact Friar, but Amy had
views of her own on these subjects. So we had a very wide agenda and we
talked in general terms of Arsenal. Which was the best Arsenal teams I had
known and I said Herbert Chapman’s team of the 1930s who won Cup and League
doubles three times in the 1930s and Arsene Wenger’s team in recent years.
Who was my favourite forwards and I said Alex James in the thirties and
Thierry Henri in this century.
But eventually we got round to my questions. On roofing stadiums Amy
said that it would be very expensive to get an estimate to cover the
Emirates and Arsenal probably couldn’t afford it any way. With regard to
playing in a roofed stadium she said she had been to the Welsh National
Stadium which has a roof and thought that play undercover had a different
feeling and that the pitch at Arsenal with under-pitch heating and covering
of the pitch in periods of ice and snow were sufficient to prevent
cancellation of games which have taken place this season, West Bromwich
Albion being guilty of not even having under-pitch heating. With regard to
my contention that injuries to such stars as Theo Walcott putting them out
of action for virtually the whole season, she said that Theo has had
shoulder problems for a long time, so it probably wasnt slipping on wet
grass that did it. These were answers to questions even though I might not
entirely agree.
Then came the sharing gifts and Amy had bought me an Arsenal shirt with
BARNSBY on the back of it. Compensation for the fact that I could not afford
an Arsenal shirt in my youth! I was able to reciprocate with an Arsenal desk
diary which delighted Amy who said it was just what she wanted.
Lastly came the session with the Observer photographer. A fine young
man whose name I asked for then promptly forgot. He had arrived separately
from Amy. He took a very large number of photos in what would have been a
gruelling session, but made me laugh all through it by getting Amy to ask me
questions about Arsenal which she did in a humorous way. They then went
their separate ways, he to a date in Rotherham and Amy to Wolverhampton
Station to meet her deadline of picking up her son (whose name I enquired
of and was told, but just as hastily forgot.) It was a memorable meeting
for both of us.
By then it was within half an hour of Peter Rhodes visit but I was so
exhausted that I went for a short kip and fully intended to report his visit
tonight, but my relation with Peter and the Wolverhampton Express and Star
have been so stormy at times, but are now so warm as the Express and Star is
the only regional newspaper I know that has been opposed to Brown and his
war in Iraq almost from the beginning that I shall adjourn my report of our
meeting until tomorrow and will end with this motto for what some people may
consider a strange cordial relation between Capitalist and Communist, but I
think you will agree is perfectly logical in the struggle to bring Gordon
Brown behind bars for crimes against humanity:

UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL

—– Original Message —–
From: “George Barnsby”
To: “Barnsby Daily Blog”
Cc:
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 12:46 AM
Subject: GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG NO.699 WEDNESDAY 21ST JANUARY 2009
www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk

> OBAMA DAY 2 - THE USA
> The hopes of the world rest upon him. History has been made. A black
> man in the in the Presidency. Who ever thought we would live to see it..
> Yet
> despite the Presidential Concert and the largest gathering of people ever
> to
> gather on this earth 2 million at Washington’s National Mall, there is
> surprising little confidence that Obama will be able to do, or is even
> willing to do what is necessary and change the world.
> Today my thoughts are with all those who ever since America was
> re-discovered have fought and succeeded in building the largest and most
> important democracy in the world against slavetraders determined to hold
> onto their black human cargoes. My thoughts are also with modern heroes of
> the fight for
> freedom - Michael Moore, Gore Vidal, Naom Chomsky and Communists such as
> Angela Davis and all those now dead who included George Washington
> himself,
> the Negro martyrs tortured and hanged who were the strange fruit of Racism
> ,
> and Communists and non-Communists such Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones and
> all those who resisted McCarthy and the terror that sweeps over the USA
> all
> too frequently
> The only thoughts for the day I have at present from these pioneers
> are from Michael Moore who writes as follow: This happy, happy day ! We
> have made it through the Dark Ages and here we are in one of the most
> redemptive moments history has ever witnessed . Barak Obama is our best
> hope to get it right, to heal our national soul, to
> reach out to the world with an olive branch instead of weapons of mass
> destruction.
> To all those who have written letters, marched for peace and never
> given up, you are the true heroes of today. Many of you have suffered
> grave
> economic losses. Some of you have endured a loved one shipped overseas to
> senseless wars abroad and seen loved ones either killed or maimed for
> life.
> As the disgraced president slides out of the side door he should
> issue just one last pardon - to himself and a blanket pardon to all
> those who, since 2001 like himself , Cheney, Rumsfeld and the whole gang
> of
> the New American Century have misruled America. Serious crimes were
> committed, a war concocted on
> a lie, and now justice must be done.
> So let us move on together from this horribleness. We are fortunate
> to have a new President who is smart and kind and committed to serving his
> country Take a moment today to think about how you can help him do his
> job.
> We’re all in this together, our country has been profoundly wrecked by an
> administration who decided to mug our constituion and steal what they can
> for their Wall Street cronies on the way out of the door.
> Here’s my plea. Let’s not leave Obama alone to clear up the mess. As
> he takes the oath will you also take an oath to work even harder then
> before
> to end these wars, create universal health car, end poverty, save the
> planet
> and establish a true government ‘of, by and for the people’ instead of
> one
> of, for and by the lobbyists, the bankers and war profiteers. Today is the
> time for celebration, optimism and hope. I am glad we have lived to see
> this
> incredible moment.
>
> OBAMA DAY 2 - ITS VICTIMS.
> How do its victims, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all other
> countries plagued by the wars started by the US Neo- Cons. think of Obama
> Day
> 2. The short answer is not a lot. Take the Middle East. Obama’s offer of
> a new start with the Muslim world won approval from the Arab media.
> Al-Jazeera the most influential Arabic TV station highlighted his call
> for
> relations built on mutual interest and respect. It highlighted that when
> Obama took his oath he used his middle name Hussein to stress his Muslim
> roots.
> Iranians whose nuclear ambitions and support for Islamic groups in
> the
> Middle East will be one of Obama’s biggest challenges thought that if he
> would
> cease ‘trouble making’ in the Middle East and if he followed the right
> path,
> compensated for the past, lifted US hostility and hegemony and revised the
> previous political mistakes, we would have no hostility said Iran’s
> foreign
> minister, Manouchehr Mottaki. but added ‘the facts tell us we should not
> be
> optimistic’.
> In Iraq although the presence of US troops on the streets of Baghdad
> is
> slowly decreasing this withdrawal has not generated a rise in US
> popularity.
> Opinions of many can be summed up as ‘All US presidents are the same and
> we’re a playground for them.
>
> WHAT IF OBAMA WERE ASSASSINATED.
> This is a question that only I have raised so far. The capitalist
> media
> on which we depend for our opinions have either not thought about this
> matter or are closing their eyes to it. Yet the USA is a violent society
> and
> presidential politics are not immune to it. This is the Achilles heel of
> Obama where he made his greatest and perhaps fatal mistake because Obama
> voluntarily chose as his Vice President a white Democratic Party
> congressman, Joe Biden a supporter of the
> war in Iraq. If Obama dies or is incapacitated the vice-president takes
> his place, and there is little doubt if that happened that both blacks and
> whites in North and South would erupt in revolutionary violence of the
> loss of the expectations of radical change of Obama.
> Even if this did not happen, Blair and Brown remain at large to
> destroy the world with their nuclear madness.
>
> ARREST BROWN RESTORE DEMOCRACY TO BRITAIN
>
>

OBAMA DAY 2 - THE USA
The hopes of the world rest upon him. History has been made. A black
man in the in the Presidency. Who ever thought we would live to see it.. Yet
despite the Presidential Concert and the largest gathering of people ever to
gather on this earth 2 million at Washington’s National Mall, there is
surprising little confidence that Obama will be able to do, or is even
willing to do what is necessary and change the world.
Today my thoughts are with all those who ever since America was
re-discovered have fought and succeeded in building the largest and most
important democracy in the world against slavetraders determined to hold
onto their black human cargoes. My thoughts are also with modern heroes of
the fight for
freedom - Michael Moore, Gore Vidal, Naom Chomsky and Communists such as
Angela Davis and all those now dead who included George Washington himself,
the Negro martyrs tortured and hanged who were the strange fruit of Racism ,
and Communists and non-Communists such Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones and
all those who resisted McCarthy and the terror that sweeps over the USA all
too frequently
The only thoughts for the day I have at present from these pioneers
are from Michael Moore who writes as follow: This happy, happy day ! We
have made it through the Dark Ages and here we are in one of the most
redemptive moments history has ever witnessed . Barak Obama is our best hope
to get it right, to heal our national soul, to
reach out to the world with an olive branch instead of weapons of mass
destruction.
To all those who have written letters, marched for peace and never
given up, you are the true heroes of today. Many of you have suffered grave
economic losses. Some of you have endured a loved one shipped overseas to
senseless wars abroad and seen loved ones either killed or maimed for life.
As the disgraced president slides out of the side door he should
issue just one last pardon - to himself and a blanket pardon to all
those who, since 2001 like himself , Cheney, Rumsfeld and the whole gang
of
the New American Century have misruled America. Serious crimes were
committed, a war concocted on
a lie, and now justice must be done.
So let us move on together from this horribleness. We are fortunate
to have a new President who is smart and kind and committed to serving his
country Take a moment today to think about how you can help him do his job.
We’re all in this together, our country has been profoundly wrecked by an
administration who decided to mug our constituion and steal what they can
for their Wall Street cronies on the way out of the door.
Here’s my plea. Let’s not leave Obama alone to clear up the mess. As
he takes the oath will you also take an oath to work even harder then before
to end these wars, create universal health car, end poverty, save the planet
and establish a true government ‘of, by and for the people’ instead of one
of, for and by the lobbyists, the bankers and war profiteers. Today is the
time for celebration, optimism and hope. I am glad we have lived to see this
incredible moment.

OBAMA DAY 2 - ITS VICTIMS.
How do its victims, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all other
countries plagued by the wars started by the US Neo- Cons. think of Obama
Day
2. The short answer is not a lot. Take the Middle East. Obama’s offer of
a new start with the Muslim world won approval from the Arab media.
Al-Jazeera the most influential Arabic TV station highlighted his call for
relations built on mutual interest and respect. It highlighted that when
Obama took his oath he used his middle name Hussein to stress his Muslim
roots.
Iranians whose nuclear ambitions and support for Islamic groups in the
Middle East will be one of Obama’s biggest challenges thought that if he
would
cease ‘trouble making’ in the Middle East and if he followed the right path,
compensated for the past, lifted US hostility and hegemony and revised the
previous political mistakes, we would have no hostility said Iran’s foreign
minister, Manouchehr Mottaki. but added ‘the facts tell us we should not be
optimistic’.
In Iraq although the presence of US troops on the streets of Baghdad is
slowly decreasing this withdrawal has not generated a rise in US popularity.
Opinions of many can be summed up as ‘All US presidents are the same and
we’re a playground for them.

WHAT IF OBAMA WERE ASSASSINATED.
This is a question that only I have raised so far. The capitalist media
on which we depend for our opinions have either not thought about this
matter or are closing their eyes to it. Yet the USA is a violent society
and
presidential politics are not immune to it. This is the Achilles heel of
Obama where he made his greatest and perhaps fatal mistake because Obama
voluntarily chose as his Vice President a white Democratic Party
congressman, Joe Biden a supporter of the
war in Iraq. If Obama dies or is incapacitated the vice-president takes his
place, and there is little doubt if that happened that both blacks and
whites in North and South would erupt in revolutionary violence of the loss
of the expectations of radical change of Obama.
Even if this did not happen, Blair and Brown remain at large to destroy
the world with their nuclear madness.

ARREST BROWN RESTORE DEMOCRACY TO
BRITAIN

NIGEL POXON OF WOLVERHAMPTON KNOWS HOW TO SOLVE BROWN’S ECONOMIC CRISIS.
Nigel is a butcher of distinction. He made his name by being one of
the first to sell his meat via the internet and he was well on his way to
making his fortune, but the EU people got on to him and all the profit he
was making disappeared. Nigel cheerily walks every day a couple black dogs
which appear like the hounds of the Baskervilles, but are most friendly when
not guarding their house.
Now Nigel, like the rest of us knows that our
beloved Prime Minister is stoney broke and the more money he gives to the
bankers and money changers the less they are prepared to lend. So with
current expenditure at ?617 BILLION Brown makes his last desperate throw
and orders the Governor of the Bank of England, our own Wolverhampton born
Mervyn King to authorise the printing of this money which is even less
likely to be spent.
Nigel’s solution is simplicity itself. Give every citizen in the UK one
million pounds each and they will make the world a better place by spending
it and there will be enough left over to pay Brown’s debts. I see that
others
are beginning to suggest similar schemes, But remember that it first came
from Nigel Poxon of Wolverhampton and you first saw it on the Barnsby BLOG.

RED BATTERSEA
Sean Creighton sends me an interesting email publicising a DVD on the
100th anniversary of the Battersea Labour Party. Sean and I share the same
interest of being natives of Battersea and an interest in race relations
where Sean has written copiously for the Black and Asian Studies
Association.
Battersea has a long history of leading figures such as John Burns,
William Sander and leading ethnic minority figures. For instance Shapurji
Saklatvala was almost the first black MP in the House of Commons and John
Archer was one of the first, if not the first, black mayor in Britain. Other
pioneer characters include Charlotte Despard, Caroline Ganley and Douglas
Jay and I could add Clive and Noreen Branson who kept the Communist Bookshop
on Lavender Hill. Clive was called up in 1941 and joined the Royal Armoured
Corps and was in India in 1942, just in time to witness the Great Indian
Famine of 1943-4. He became the most important witness to one of the
greatest crimes of British imperialism, because it was a man made famine and
there was no famine in military towns such as Bombay and Calcutta as Clive
and I could personally testify. Clive wrote a book on the famine Letters
from India which the Communist Party printed and its impact was very
considerable Clive was killed in action on the Arakan front in Burma in
February 1944. It was from about 1934 that I became politically aware and I
knew nothing of the history of the Battersea labour movement, and I
sometimes say that its history must have rubbed off on to me and it was many
years
before I wrote my own history of the famine of which became and remains the
first gratis product of the GB Free Communist Bookshop.
In the 1960s hstoric Battersea was swallowed up by the much less
interesting Wandsworth, but like the towns of the Black Country which were
swallowed up by Sandwell, there is a lingering feeling that Dudley, West
Bromwich and Smethwick should again be separate and there are those of us
wishing that Battersea should too
Meanwhile I am happy to publicise the centenary celebrations in Battersea
illustrated with music and song. Doubtless Sean will pass later information
on to me, which I shall post on this BLOG.

AMY LAWRENCE AND MY 90TH BIRTHDAY PARTY.
Amy, of the few female football commentators will not be covering,
the Wolverhampton match but will be able to be here on Thursday or
Friday.and I shall be happy to be interviewed on either day for the
Observer. But just think of the difficulties of a female with a small child
compared with a man in the one hundredth year of the celebration of equal
rights
Amy writes, I looked up the train times in order to get to Wolverhampton
and back in time to drop and fetch my little boy from his nursery. I could
be in Wolverhampton by about noon and this would give me a good two hours to
interview you before heading back to London. How does this sound, she asks
me. Well two hours is just about the time of a football match and this would
be her time table for any match she had to report on outside London. How
long would you and I last on such a weekly itinary?

MAKE EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES A REALITY