The Barnsby Blog

THE G20 PLOT THICKENS.
While Gordon Brown continues his ill-fated tour of the world to push his
G20 plans on to an unwilling world, back here in Britain it is a case of
when the Cat is away the Mice will Play.
Labour was thrown into new embarrassment yesterday over MPs and their
expenses when the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was forced to apologise for
trying to claim back costs of the family TV package which included the
rental of two pornographic films. Last month she was revealed as having
claimed tax-payer funded allowances for her family home, while living with
her sister in London. Her husband, Richard Timney promised to pay it back .
Smith employs her husband on a salary of ?40,000 a year to run her office
Smith has been reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards,
John Lyon. Both Timney and his wife have had to grovel in public by
apologising profusely, but it may not be enough as the Tories demand that
she should be dismissed.
Then Brown is in trouble with his new Nuclear Reactor plans on the
fringes of the Lake District National Park. Its not simply that the majority
of people are opposed to an extension of Nuclear Power stations, but that
the energy companies involved are in foreign hands. So that in a world which
now for the first time has the ability to remove this planet from the from
the universe we might have to content ourselves as we float away to
eternity that it was foreign nuclear maniacs as well as Gordon Brown and his
New Labour nuclear maniacs who were responsible for the foul deed. RWE a
German power group is contemplating building a nuclear power station at
Kirksanton on the fringes of the Lake District National Park, while EDF of
France and E.On of Germany want their nuclear power station further along
that beautiful territory at Sellafield of notorious reputation. And there
is need for these Maniacs to make haste, because bids for land is being
auctioned off tomorrow by the, and this surely is the height of irony by the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Locals fear that there could be a new
generation of nuclear plants stretching all along the Cumbrian Coast. That
is, of course unless CND and the Peace Movement in general can prevent this
ultimate calamity.

MORE TROUBLE WITH THE JUDICIARY.
Judges have forsaken their traditional garb of robe and wigs in favour
of a new uniform of wiglessness and elegant new robes which fasten at the
neck and are colour coded at the neck, red for the ordinary run of the mill
judges who try most of the criminals in this country and other colours for
the High Court judges who sentence murderers and the like.
But it turns out that Their Honours have been totally dissatisfied with
both the gowns they have been forced to wear, but also new guidelines on
sentencing of prisoners which have been foisted on them, again without
consultation, and removes the possibility of sentencing according to the
seriousness of the offence, and instead ‘ticking boxes’ as New Labour has
decreed, again without consultation.
Similar complaints are being raised by the Law Society. Under the Legal
Services Act of 2007 new types of law firms will be allowed to come into
existence allowing non-legal firms such as insurance companies, banks and
estate agents to merge with legal firms and in these days of economic slump,
legal firms are likely to have to sack staff and this is more likely to be
among the more skilled and highly paid legal staff rather than the less
highly paid non-legal staff. Militancy is now to be expected from these
higher echelons of society!
.
MEANWHILE IN WOLVERHAMPTON.
It is not only the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who is on the receiving
end of the attentions of the West Midland Police for falsely claming ?22,948
for her second home in the West Midlands, but a harmless Wolverhampton,
Conservative Councillor is to have his day of glory by being questioned over
a Gay joke made at a West Midlands Police Liaison Committee meeting as
audience members were given hand sets to answer questions flashed on the
screen to a police presentation for ultimate show to the public. The
presenter said he’d start with at easy question and asked that if you were
male you should press button A and if you were female press button B. The
question was then asked what you would do if you were neither and Councillor
Yardley said in all innocence that he would press both buttons at once!
Unbeknown to him, however, there was a transsexual in the audience who
objected to the answer and Jonathan Yardley was told he could be prosecuted
for homophobic comments and subject to a civil prosecution. Mr Yardley, very
naturally is most put out by this possibility and thinks, like most of us,
that the police should have better things to do. And no doubt the police
feel the same way.

WHEN THE LAW IS AN ASS CHANGE IT

G20 LANDS GORDON BROWN IN THE SOUP.
There’s none so blind as them who won’t see and Brown is a basket
case. Not content with bearding he of the magnificent name President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva in his own lair of Brasilia and being told that the
world crisis had been created by Blue Eyed White Bankers and promising
Brown a ’spicy’ conference, he is today consulting West European leaders
and
being told by the German leader attacking Brown’s immense ‘fiscal measures’
(shorthand for printing billions of Euros) which Angela Merkel of Germany is
opposed to as is the Governor of the Bank of England who, rather more than
Brown who is never present seems to be running Britain and George Soros
currency speculator and vast donor to Africa warn Brown that the least
affluent of the EU members, those in East Europe, must be protected from
‘free market’ capitalism which creates unacceptable extremes of incomes,
leaving at one end the blue eyed bankers at one end and at the other whole countries
such as Hungary, Poland Lithuania etc as destitute areas increasingly owned
by the richer EU powers in a crisis not of their making.
Yet still none of these powerful critics of the EU and Nato make the
obvious point that if the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere
were brought to an end the savings on the war now reckoned to be dollars
609,032,660,121 would be enough to end the current Economic Depression and
also fund adequate social services in Britain.

PROBLEMS OF THOSE WHO WILL NOT SPEAK TO ME.
One of the most distressing cases is that of the Metropolitan Police who
murdered the innocent Jean Charles Menezes in July 2005 revealing that he
had been shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder. My question,
which no one else has ever asked is, Why do not the Police shoot to wound
and not to Kill because in such a case they would not be faced with a murder
charge and they would have a live witness who could explain to them that he
is not a Terrorist. I understand that his relatives are demanding from the
Met. the reason why he was shot and they’re not getting answers either.
A second case is that of Sir Trevor Phillips who I claim has never
answered my charge that he is not a fit and proper person to be in charge of
race relations because he will not say whether he is in favour or against
the war in Iraq which he declared when he was in charge of the former Race
Equality Commision that the war in Iraq was ‘not within his remit’. I got no
support from his fellow commissioners when I first made my complaint, but
Phillips’ erratic behaviour now seems to have infuriated his colleagues and
Nicola Brewer the former chief executive of EHRC and three other
commissioners complain of financial irregularities and have referred the
matter to the National Audit Office. The details need not detain us here,
although the new body is a selected one entirely under the control of New
Labour whereas the CRE was a democratic independent body which never should
have been dissolved. But Phillips who is said to have powerful friends
including Lord Mandelson, which will not endear him to democrats, hopes to
ride out the storm.
A third person who will not reply to me is the chief executive of
Wolverhampton City Council who has been asked to explain who runs and
controls Wolverhampton as masses of ‘regeneration’ bodies compete to tells
us how wonderful they are going to make Wolverhampton, but either it turns
out that they are competing bodies who can only succeed at the expense of
the other, so each resorts to suing the other; or they find themselves in
the present financial plight without the resources they thought they had and
additional money is required to guard the deserted properties from vandals.
Over this ruination of the city rather than its regeneration presides
Richard Carr the said chief executive, who blithely refuses to answer my
questions, even though the failure to carry out his statutory obligation to
reply to correspondence addressed to him is likely to get him the sack when
the Ombudsman gets on his trail.

DEMOCRACY
RULES - NOT DUMB INSOLENCE

GEORGE GALLOWAY DOES IT AGAIN.
I’m afraid I’ve been a bit disappointed with George in recent months.
Although he understands as well as I do that in combating terrorism, the
greatest terrorists have been George W.Bush and Tony Blair able to destroy
the world with their nuclear bombs and as their fangs have been drawn, the
greatest terrorists are now Gordon Brown and, we are sorry to say, Barak
Obama, the new US president. The most sensible way of bringing peace and
multiculturalism to the world is to end the wars in in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine and elsewhere because enough money would then be available both to
solve the present Economic Depression and leave enough over to finance
adequately our social services.
As George Galloway is to my tway of hinking, the most innovative MP that we
have, I hoped that he would lead a revolt in the House of Commons and vote
for Brown to be constitutionally removed and replace him with someone who has
opposed the war from the beginning, and have suggested that by far the best candidate
would be Diane Abbott who would trump the new black US president by being
both black and female. This would immensely increase Britain’s influence in
the world . The second way of removing Brown would be for someone to make a
Citizen’s Arrest and hand Brown over to the International Court of Human
Rights at the Hague as a war criminal.
Galloway has done neither and instead has been involved in various
disputes witch have all but destroyed the organisation that he formed,
Respect. But chance has now given him an opportunity to redeem himself, with
the foolish and illegal act of the Canadian government to ban him from
Canada as an unprecedented attack on free speech.
George has said that he will challenge the ban with all the means at
his disposal and his incomparable oratorical skills will not doubt be
displayed to the full in Canada and the USA (where surprisingly he is not banned) as progressive
organisations in both countries have requested that he speak to them.
So I hope that George will once again see that the GB Working Class
Library and Free Communist Bookshop and COPAM are allies in the struggle to
change the new multicultural world that is emerging.

A WEEK OF PROTEST TO END THE WARS.
Today has seen the first of the mass demonstrations against war and the
scale is such that not even the TV moguls have been able to ignore it. The
demo was joined by the Stop the War Coalition which was called by the TUC
and NGOs demanding jobs and action on poverty and the environment. It
joined an anti -war solidarity campaign with Palestine The demo was hugely
successful.
On Monday (30 March) there will be a public meeting to Meet the
Resistance and the speakers will include Hussein El-Hajj MP (Lebanon’s
Loyalty to the Resistance Parliamentary Bloc); Hasan Khreishi (Vice
President of the Palestine Legislative Council); Dyab Abou JahJah (
International Co-ordination of the International Union of Parliamentarians
for Peace); Sukant Chanda ( English chair of IUPFP) alas well as British
speakers. The meeting is at the Friends Meeting House, Euston Rd. London.
Wednesday 1 April ‘Yes we Can’ demonstration perhaps even larger than
today’s with the full peace programme of Troops out of Iraq and
Afghanistan, End the Siege of Gaza, Make Jobs not Bombs, Abolish Nukes, End
Arms Sales to Israel. Assemble 2pm at the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square,
London. The Demo will start by handing a message to Barak Obama at the US
Embassy. We will then march through Central London at the moment that world
leaders arrive and Obama meets Gordon Brown at Downing St.; 3-30pm a Rally
in Trafalgar Square. Speakers include Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill, Daud
Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain and trade union speakers.
Entertainers will include the Palestinian singer Reem Kolanai and rapper
Lowkey.
The demos continue. Thurs 2 April Protest at Excel Centre, details to
be announced.; NO TO NATO International demo Friday 3 April Coaches depart
for Strasbourg 6am at Victoria Embankment. Book online at
www.stopwar.org.uk or phone 020 78012768. Saturday 4 April International
Demo; Sunday 5 April Strasbourg Counter Conference.

JAZZ ONCE MORE.
Material from Harry Johnson, co-originator with his great friend Ken
Allsop of the Furthest East Rhythm Club in the World at Imphal on the
Burma/Indian border in 1942-3 which met an untimely end when the Japanese
began their great offensive which was to have conquered India and link up
with Hitler, but which abruptly failed when 4 Corps were ordered to stay put
while they were supplied by air in what was then the largest airlift then
known. After a three month siege the Japanese were routed and we reconquered
Burma with the powerful help of the Resistance forces and went on to return
Malaya to its old British rulers, Indonesia to the Dutch which resulted in
the slaughter of 1 million Indonesian progressives and Communists and Indo-China to the French which culminated in the war in Vietnam against people who had already liberated
themselves, When we returned home we tried to get jazz musicians and disc
jockeys to replicate the programmes that we had held at Imphal especially as
minutes had been meticulously kept; but nobody wanted to know. Our records
are now in the National Jazz Archives and in these days of obligation to
the men who saved us from fascism there is still no reason why our sessions
cannot be replicated.
This is particularly true since Sir Jack Hayward, the former owner of
Wolves FC flew gliders in Burma and may even have know of the Rhythm Club.
But when taken to a Sunday jazz session at the Harp at Albrighton, I
listened to a pianist called David Smith and wanting to tell him about the
Imphal Rhythm Club I was staggered to learn that he was of Indonesian origin
and told me that it might have been an Indonesian band which was the
furthest east in the world.
Tomorrow I shall be going to the Harp for another session of jazz and
who should be the main band but Dan Smith’s band and we’ll renew
acquaintance especially as he is on my list of people to receive my BLOG and
COPAM.
Meanwhile in response to a number of BLOGS I sent to Harry Johnson, he
has come up with material on sport and particularly on cricket Also, our
links to the important USA society of Jazz Record Collectors we have learned
much that we did not previously know, especially that pre-war in the 1930s
Russia had jazz bands which found it politic to transfer to China which then
were caught up in the Japanse invasions and Harry Johnson has sent me some of
the pieces he contributes occasionally to the Military Police Journal which
is full of the names of famous cricketers he encountered during the war
which included Denis Compton, Walter Hammond the England captain, Leslie
Ames the English wicket keeper and others.
But he also decided to save a copy of an Order of the Day
congratulating all units at the defeat of the Japanese at Imphal. As he says
it occurred to him then that this might be an historic document in years to
come and so he saved a copy of it , which is now difficult to read, but
indeed is an historic document which we will send to the National Jazz
Archives at Loughton, in Essex , and keep in the GB Working Class Library.
It is from Air Commodore Vincent and it says (and I paraphrase) In
March I sent an Order-of-the-Day saying that I was confident that the Jap
would be beaten thoroughly in his efforts to conquer Imphal. He has been
driven right away from the Valley and is still on the run. Excellent team
work has been responsible for this success. The team of 4 Corps, 33 Corps ,
the transport aircraft and 221 Group.
The flying that has been done over mountainous country and often in bad
weather that can be worse than anywhere else in the world has been
magnificent.. The Japs are now out of reach of ground forces, so we, in the
air, are the only ones who can strike them; and this we must continue to do
without pause, in order to prevent the enemy collecting themselves, resting
and re-equipping. We have chased him out of INDIA, we must chase him out of
BURMA. If we keep at him in his demoralised and ill equipped condition we
may well drive him from this part of the world and have a big share in his
final defeat.
I have been very proud to have commanded 221 Group for the last six
months. I have great hopes for tithe future.
Thanks Harry. Both your writing and your recordings of the records we
played at Imphal are important and I am sure that we can repeat the
sessions we held in Imphal for posterity and also get them played on modern
jazz programmes. If the present emphasis on New Jazz is recognised, the
importance of Trad Jazz must eventually also be recognised.

TRADITIONAL JAZZ IS IMPORTANT BOTH IN WAR AND IN PEACE.

THAT MAN BROWN ON HIS TRAVELS AGAIN.
Talk about Who Runs Britain, well it can’t be Gordon Brown because he’s
never here. This time its to South America, very tricky territory for a man
who has never been a proper socialist and who is engaged at the present
time of sanctioning the murder of Iraqi and Afghan civilians and our own
troops in a last ditch stand to sell to the public his idea of the G20,
which with its ‘free trade policy’ which in fact is the reverse and means
that the least advantaged countries (in this case the countries of Eastern
Europe are having their countries sold from under them, and as is always the
case with capitalism the rich benefit greatly whereas the poor lose their
jobs and homes and face destitution.
But in South America a new Socialism has taken root and every single
country is now opposed to the neo-colonialism of big brother USA even if the
new titular head of that country has a brown complexion
So when Brown visited Brasilia and tried to sell its duly elected
leader (which Brown is not), Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, his false
programme
to help the world’s poor he had to listen to Lula telling him that it was
blue eyed bankers who were to blame for the economic crash and he would make
the Conference a ’spicy’ one by telling Brown such home truths.
According to Lula, ‘This crisis was caused by no black man or woman, or
by no indigenous person or by no poor person…It was fostered and boosted
by irrational behaviour of some people who are white, blue- eyed. Before
the crisis they looked like they knew everything about economics, and they
have shown they know nothing about economics’. Challenged about his claims
Lula said ‘I am not acquainted with a single black banker’.
One can imagine Lula’s mentors - Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Mores
nodding sagely at these remarks as the crisis of capitalism brings nearer
the victory
of Socialism.

BANK REFUSES TO BAIL OUT STRICKEN CAR INDUSTRY.
The Bank of England has refused to provide billions of pounds aid to
stricken car industries dealing a blow to the government’s promise to aid
the car industry. Shades of the days when ‘Red Robbo’ led the Combined
Shop
Stewards in wage demands for workers and not for the likes of Michael
Edwardes, specially imported from South Africa and appointed by the Thatcher
government to destroy the trade union movement in Britain which he almost
succeeded in doing.
Or of Tony Benn Trade and Industry minister in Harold
Wilson’s government trying to press on with an election pledge to
nationalise the car industry while Wilson himself was anxious not to keep
the promise. Both Derek Robinson and Tony Benn are available and fit enough
to lead a struggle at Longbridge again where minimal car production of new
models now takes place in a tiny corner of the massive site by Chinese
companies while the rest of the site is scheduled to be sold off to property
developers who have no money for the ‘regeneration’ which would never have
been necessary the government had supported there being a car industry in
Britain.
The end of the car industry in America has been highlighted as a Tented
City has arisen which has been highlighted by Oprah Winfrey America’s most
famous coloured show hostess who has forsaken show biz for politics as she
finances those who have lost jobs and homes and make Detroit look like a
bomb site. She has been joined by another show biz heavyweight Arnold
Schwarzeneger who announced plans to house the tent dwellers in a nearby
convention centre until a new one million dollar plan for more permanent
accommodation could be implemented. They will both argue that US banks and
the government must re-finance the US auto industry and exercise the
necessary controls for it to flourish. There is also a sort of ’socialism’
growing up among the tented community. Groups of tents making up their own
rules of governance. Groups taking in newcomers if they have no tents or
their tents destroyed by storms. It’s a reminder that Socialism has a very
long history in America from the Primitive Communism of the indigenous
population through economic, social and religious Utopias of the nineteenth
century to growing socialist and Communist groups now as well as the tented
communities

TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.
As Obama plans new ’surges’ in Afghanistan and Iraq fears exist of
mid-term Congressional elections in which the US public will refuse to
sanction such activities are on the cards as mid-term Congressional
elections loom in November next year.
Gordon Brown’s room for manoeuvre is just as limited with a
Parliamentary election due in 2010 at the latest. The only way out of these
dilemmas is to end the wars and bring the troops home. This would make both
Obama and Brown great local heroes and ensure and usher in the Peace and
Multiculturalism that the people of the world yearn for.

FOR
PEACE AND SOCIALISM

KICK RACISM OUT.
Controversy continues over the extent and importance of Racism in
Football. The leading body is still Kick it Out established in 1993. It is
supported by the government, the Football Association ( FA), and the
Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), The Premier League, as well as
Race organisations etc.
Internationally it plays an important role in Football Against Racism
(FARE) and has been cited as a good example by the
world’s governing body FIFA, the Council of Europe and all the great and the
good organisations of the world including the Commission for Equality and
Human Rights (CEHR). Yet Racism persists. Lord Herman Ouseley has just
resigned from Kick it Out for its inability to discipline racist taunts and
in September last there was the case of monkey chants against Emile Husky
in Zagreb when we were victorious 4-1. The FA demanded an official
investigation into the incident, but I cannot trace what happened.
Racism has also been alleged in the sacking of Paul Ince, the first
black manager in the Premiership. Certain black players have played
important roles in combating racism, notably David James, at present the
Portsmouth and England goalkeeper and also Rio Ferdinand captain of
Manchester United and England, who took an undeserved swipe at Sepp Blatter
the FIFA chief, but was correct in the points that he made. These were that
Croatia was fined a few thousand quid and that is not going to stop racist
or homophobic abuse. ‘If things like this keep happening you have to take
points off them. Then the punters will realise that the team is going to be
punished’. Good for Rio, it is the only way - deduct points from the team.
The only people to benefit from racism in football is the BNP and
actions against racism in football tie up with the general fight against
racism in Britain which is spearheaded by the national campaigns of Hope
not Hate aimed at rejecting the BNP’s message of hate. This now seems to be
fragmenting with the slogan Love Peace, Hate War into strands which could be
divided according to individual’s interests, so, Love History, hate War;
Love Music, Hate War, Love Food, Hate War and so on ad infinitum. And what
slogans could be better?

WHO RUNS BRITAIN - WHO RUNS WOLVERHAMPTON.
On ‘Any Questions’ tonight a question was: Who runs England, the
Prime Minister or the Governor of the Bank of England? Opinions were
divided Charles Clarke the government representative was very critical of
the way Gordon Brown was running it, but came down on Brown’s side. The
Conservative, Lib-Dem and the Green Party representatives all thought that
we were at the ‘decisive point’ where Brown must have a public enquiry into
the reason for going to war in Iraq whoever runs the country, and they
didn’t rule out that it was Mervyn King. But the other member of the team
Michael Winner, famous for his adverts with eSure brought the house down by
suggesting that nobody was running the country and the proposed enquiry
should take place forthwith, so that the people could decide why the war in
Iraq was started which will be the key question that people should know the
answer to before voting at a general election which can now be only months
away.
A similar state of limbo seems to exist in Wolverhampton where all the
vast schemes for ‘regenerating Wolverhampton seem to have ‘gang aglee’ in
spite of it having the unique advantage of being able to form a City council
of anti-Iraq war councillors in a coalition of Conservatives, Labour and
Lib-Dems. This would have a nation wide effect because if the war were
ended there would be enough money saved to solve the country’s economic
crisis and still leave enough to properly finance our social services which
at present Gordon Brown and his accomplices are determined to remove and
turn them over to private organisations and people.
The Tory councillors seem to have caught the same disease as the former
New Labour council and refuse to answer my complaints. This is a shame
because apart from the chief executive of the City council, Richard Carr,
who still has no intention of replying to me although he has an obligation
to do so, now also the leader of the council, Neville Patten, refuses to
reply to me as does the Mayor, Christine Mills who was invited to endorse a
letter signed by more than 20 USA mayors opposing the war in Iraq. It is
quite sad really as we have the Ombusdmen on their trail who will tell them
that they must reply to correspondence addressed to them.

LOVE
WOLVERHAMPTON - HATE WAR.

THE ARSENAL FOOTBALL TRUST.
There can be no doubting the serious plight of sport. Take
football, Manchester United’s multi-million playboys Rooney and Ronaldo who
greeted Manchester United’s defeat by Fulham at the week-end to get
themselves sent off for thinking that Fulham were deliberately wasting time.
Or the same team’s shame in wearing on their shirts the ignoble name
of AIG the largest bankruptcy that the US and the world had ever known. And
their manager Sir Alex Ferguson , a Socialist, forced to defend such
capitalist atrocities. Or Newcastle United with NORTHERN ROCK on their
shirts, the biggest bankruptcy in Britain to date.
Even the New Labour government is being forced to intervene and declare
that teams like Chelsea and Liverpool who vastly over spend, or teams like
Manchester City whose owners prove to be criminals will face government
disapproval.
Even Arsenal, who until now have spent wisely and well, have now been
drawn into the deadly circle of clubs liable to be sold to foreigners and
suffer bankruptcy as their new owners, a Russian and an American are subject
to the market forces which spell sudden death to those who operate in
private markets which now show debts in the trillions.
Much the same applies to Wolverhampton Wanderers, which with Arsenal are
the two clubs which hitherto have championed British clubs remaining in
local and British hands but now face serious problems. Arsenal appointing a
Russian, Ivan Gazidis as managing director and allowing him a free hand to
develop policy, while Wolves whose patriot owner, Sir Jack Hayward , sold
Wolves to Steve Morgan for ?10 on condition that he kept Wolves in British
hands. In the last financial year Wolves revealed debts of ?4 million last
year, but whose rising revenues enable it to cover these debts and their
only problem now is that Morgan is now in a power struggle with Redrow whose
management now seem intent on not allowing Morgan to re-join the management
of the firm that he formed.

GORDON BROWN’S DILEMMAS.
Brown is abroad again this week, this phantom figure busy telling the
world how to fight terrorism and manage the world economic depression which
he and others of his ilk such as Blair and Bush originated by starting an
illegal, racist and unwinnable war in Iraq. Brown leaves his deputy,
Harriet Harman, to face the Lib-Dems who never supported the war in Iraq in
the first place, but who seem now rather timid in admitting it. And also the
Tories, led this week by William Haigh, Tory deputy shadow leader who has
always supported the war in Iraq. Haigh described the intervention of our
Wolverhampton educated, Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, whose
intervention ahead of the budget was exceptional and extraordinary, he
claimed, especially as Brown was in the process of proclaiming a ‘fiscal
stimulus’ (government-speak for printing money) as the ‘ defining moment’
of the debate of how to deal with the economic crisis. Haigh and his master,
shadow prime minister David Cameron who we declare will never be prime
minister while he supports the war in Iraq and refuses to reply to those
like us of the Barnsby BLOG and COPAM. The G20 Summit begins this week and
it is STOP THE WAR CAMPAIGN , the CONVENTION OF THE LEFT, OUR WORLD OUR SAY
together with the ethnic minority organisations and trade unions which
together form such a formidable force in Britain to oppose the real
terrorists, Bush, Blair and now Brown and Barak Obama, (unfortunately), The
threat to the destruction of the world from those like Brown and New Labour
who support nukes and Trident must be arrested NOW to safeguard Peace and
Multiculturalism.

ARREST BROWN : MAKE DIANE ABBOTT PRIME
MINISTER : GIVE US OUR POXON POTION OF ONE MILLION POUNDS
TO END THE DEPRESSION

UNLOCKING DEMOCRACY.
To mark 20 years of Charter 88 the bookshop Housman’s will be holding a
special event tomorrow Wednesday 25th March at Housman’s Bookshop, 5,
Caledonia Rd. Kings Cross, London N1 9DX at 7pm with special guests Peter
Facey (director of Unlock Democracy) and Anthony Barnett (co-founder Charter 88
and co-director of the Convention on Modern Liberty). Admission is free and
the nearest Underground Station King’s Cross.
Anthony Barnett is the founder of Open Democracy.net as well as a founder member of the Convention on Modern Liberty founded last week. He writes regularly for Open Democracy and his books include the Struggles of Vietnam and Cambodia - the Aftermath, as well as the Radical Reform of the House of Lords which he wrote for Demos in 1998. Of the Convention on Modern Liberty he has defended it twice, once against Rafale Behr’s desperate criticism and then against David Aaronovitch’s attack as one of the Times’ chief reporters of where he writes that many newspaper correspondents lead the way in denigrating the Convention of which he writes, ‘After years of watching the slow extinction of parliamentary debate and cynicism in the media, it was sheer delight to hear people talk so earnestly…There could hardly be a better defence of politics.. And this BLOG and COPAM fully agree when I have listened to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight tonight fencing with the redoubtable Daud Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain who knows full well that the real terrorists were George Bush and Tony Blair, and now are Gordon Brown who daily sanctions mass murder of Iraq and Afghan civilians as well as endangering the world by nuclear madness, and Barak Obama is losing his way by demanding new surges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza which the majority of the world’s people are opposed to and we propose Diane Abbott, both black and female as the alternative to Brown which the Stop the War Coalition agree with instead of the insipid programmes of so called Peoples Charter sponsored by RESPECT and George Galloway which, like Obama, seem to have lost their way.

THE CLOSURE OF THE BILSTON STEEL WORKS IS NOT A MATTER TO BE CELEBRATED.
The 30th Anniversary of the closure of Bilston Steelworks is not a matter to be celebrated as Bilston Community Centre seems intent in doing. There will be a ’service of celebration in Bilston’s main Anglican church St. Leonards on April 3 from 6-7pm. This will be followed by a Social Evening at the Springfield Social Club once the resort of striking steelworkers attempting to stop the closure of the main source of employment in Bilston in a period of mass unemployment. An exhibition of the history of the Bilston Steelworks will run from April 4 to 26 at the Bilston Community Centre (BCA) in Prouds Lane, Bilston, launched by the man Dennis Turner who used to be the keeper of the spot where he first ironworks were opened in Bradley, Bilston by John Wilkinson before 1780. Speakers will include David Bishop of the Wolverhampton Archives and Ron Davies, local Bilston historian. Balvant Patel who has been secretary of the BCC for the last 20 years has had 55 former employees contact him from places as far away as S.Africa, and Canada as well as in other parts of Britain. A memorial plaque with a 12 point history of the Steel Works will be placed at the junction of Wolverhampton Street and High Street and will be unveiled by Jack Bickley, chair of BCA on April 5 at 11am. Residents are welcome to attend and go on to the BCA to watch a DVD featuring interviews with former employees. For tickets to the event phone 01902 552264.
That these events should be commemorated is good, but the idea that it is a celebration ignores the seriousness of the occasion which was the end of industry in Bilston in a period of mass unemployment and a Conservative government under Thatcher as intent on destroying heavy engineering in Bilston as the New Labour people under Gordon Brown are determined not to save our basic industries today and with it destroy our basic freedoms as Thatcher was in her days.
It is in these circumstances that Bilston mad its unique contribution to education and freedom.
Take education. When Bilston Steelworks was closed those who found themselves unemployed were unable to gain qualifications in education, unless they already possessed GCEs or the technical qualifications to become apprentices and Wulfrun College in the posher part of west Wolverhampton represented those views. Whereas Bilston Community College was headed by Keith Wymer, am man whose College was opened up to all who applied whether they had qualifications or not. Under these circumstances was built the first multicultural college in Britain, catering not only for white students, but also the ethnic minority communities who were the most deprived in Britain. Here, by means of running courses outside the College in Temples, Mosques, Community Centre etc. Bilston became one of the largest Colleges in the UK. Soon it had one third of its staff and one third of its students from ethnic minority people, a percentage never reached anywhere else in Britain either before or since, and the college premises also became a non-racist area where black people could hold their ceremonies of birthdays or weddings in a racist-free atmosphere. And all this was recognised at first by the educational Inspectorate to be produce sound educational results and to be the way forward for other Colleges. But it was too good to last, the racist educational authorities with David Blunkett as Educational Secretary arranged that the small Wulfrun College should take over the massive Bilston Community College on the pretence that it was a ‘merger’ and BCC disappeared. Fortunately it wouldn’t lie down and when it was disclosed afer an eighteen months enquire instigated by the Enoch Powell supporter, John Mellor, then a Tory councillor in Wolverhampton that no charge of financial improprieties could be sustained by the West Midlands Crime Squad which had been given the task of investigating the College, BCC should have been restored. I wasn’t and it hasn’t because the documents proving the innocence of the College will not be released except at an exorbitant charge which the Friends of Bilston College cannot afford, so there the matter rests.
I know that most of the involved in the present ‘celebrations’ know that the closing of BCC was one of the great educational scandals of the century, but present day objections to the G20 Summit which advocates ‘free trade’ which ruins the weaker capitalist powers of Eastern Europe and the racism which still exists throughout the world, not least in England were first opposed in Bilston.

WOLVERHAMPTON CITY OF CULTURE, EDUCATION, SPORT AND BUSINESS IN 2010

UNLOCKING DEMOCRACY.
To mark 20 years of Charter 88 the bookshop Housman’s will be holding a
special event tomorrow Wednesday 25th March at Housman’s Bookshop, 5,
Caledonia Rd. Kings Cross, London N1 9DX at 7pm with special guests Peter
Facey (director of Unlock Democracy) and Anthony Barnett (co-founder
Charter 88
and co-director of the Convention on Modern Liberty). Admission is free and
the nearest Underground Station King’s Cross.
Anthony Barnett is the founder of Open Democracy.net as well as a
founder member of the Convention on Modern Liberty founded last week. He
writes regularly for Open Democracy and his books include the Struggles of
Vietnam and Cambodia - the Aftermath, as well as the Radical Reform of the
House of Lords which he wrote for Demos in 1998. Of the Convention on
Modern Liberty he has defended it twice, once against Rafale Behr’s
desperate criticism and then against David Aaronovitch’s attack as one of
the Times’ chief reporters of where he writes that many newspaper
correspondents lead the way in denigrating the Convention of which he
writes, ‘After years of watching the slow extinction of parliamentary debate
and cynicism in the media, it was sheer delight to hear people talk so
earnestly…There could hardly be a better defence of politics.. And this
BLOG and COPAM fully agree when I have listened to Jeremy Paxman on
Newsnight tonight fencing with the redoubtable Daud Abdullah from the Muslim
Council of Britain who knows full well that the real terrorists were George
Bush and Tony Blair, and now are Gordon Brown who daily sanctions mass
murder of Iraq and Afghan civilians as well as endangering the world by
nuclear madness, and Barak Obama is losing his way by demanding new surges
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza which the majority of the world’s people are
opposed to and we propose Diane Abbott, both black and female as the
alternative to Brown which the Stop the War Coalition agree with instead of
the insipid programmes of so called Peoples Charter sponsored by RESPECT
and George Galloway which, like Obama, seem to have lost their way.

THE CLOSURE OF THE BILSTON STEEL WORKS IS NOT A MATTER TO BE CELEBRATED.
The 30th Anniversary of the closure of Bilston Steelworks is not a
matter to be celebrated as Bilston Community Centre seems intent in doing.
There will be a ’service of celebration in Bilston’s main Anglican church
St. Leonards on April 3 from 6-7pm. This will be followed by a Social
Evening at the Springfield Social Club once the resort of striking
steelworkers attempting to stop the closure of the main source of employment
in Bilston in a period of mass unemployment. An exhibition of the history of
the Bilston Steelworks will run from April 4 to 26 at the Bilston Community
Centre (BCA) in Prouds Lane, Bilston, launched by the man Dennis Turner who
used to be the keeper of the spot where he first ironworks were opened in
Bradley, Bilston by John Wilkinson before 1780. Speakers will include David
Bishop of the Wolverhampton Archives and Ron Davies, local Bilston
historian. Balvant Patel who has been secretary of the BCC for the last 20
years has had 55 former employees contact him from places as far away as
S.Africa, and Canada as well as in other parts of Britain. A memorial plaque
with a 12 point history of the Steel Works will be placed at the junction of
Wolverhampton Street and High Street and will be unveiled by Jack Bickley,
chair of BCA on April 5 at 11am. Residents are welcome to attend and go on
to the BCA to watch a DVD featuring interviews with former employees. For
tickets to the event phone 01902 552264.
That these events should be commemorated is good, but the idea that it
is a celebration ignores the seriousness of the occasion which was the end
of industry in Bilston in a period of mass unemployment and a Conservative
government under Thatcher as intent on destroying heavy engineering in
Bilston as the New Labour people under Gordon Brown are determined not to
save our basic industries today and with it destroy our basic freedoms as
Thatcher was in her days.
It is in these circumstances that Bilston mad its unique contribution
to education and freedom.
Take education. When Bilston Steelworks was closed those who found
themselves unemployed were unable to gain qualifications in education,
unless they already possessed GCEs or the technical qualifications to become
apprentices and Wulfrun College in the posher part of west Wolverhampton
represented those views. Whereas Bilston Community College was headed by
Keith Wymer, am man whose College was opened up to all who applied whether
they had qualifications or not. Under these circumstances was built the
first multicultural college in Britain, catering not only for white
students, but also the ethnic minority communities who were the most
deprived in Britain. Here, by means of running courses outside the College
in Temples, Mosques, Community Centre etc. Bilston became one of the largest
Colleges in the UK. Soon it had one third of its staff and one third of its
students from ethnic minority people, a percentage never reached anywhere
else in Britain either before or since, and the college premises also became
a non-racist area where black people could hold their ceremonies of
birthdays or weddings in a racist-free atmosphere. And all this was
recognised at first by the educational Inspectorate to be produce sound
educational results and to be the way forward for other Colleges. But it was
too good to last, the racist educational authorities with David Blunkett as
Educational Secretary arranged that the small Wulfrun College should take
over the massive Bilston Community College on the pretence that it was a
‘merger’ and BCC disappeared. Fortunately it wouldn’t lie down and when it
was disclosed afer an eighteen months enquire instigated by the Enoch Powell
supporter, John Mellor, then a Tory councillor in Wolverhampton that no
charge of financial improprieties could be sustained by the West Midlands
Crime Squad which had been given the task of investigating the College, BCC
should have been restored. I wasn’t and it hasn’t because the documents
proving the innocence of the College will not be released except at an
exorbitant charge which the Friends of Bilston College cannot afford, so
there the matter rests.
I know that most of the involved in the present ‘celebrations’ know
that the closing of BCC was one of the great educational scandals of the
century, but present day objections to the G20 Summit which advocates ‘free
trade’ which ruins the weaker capitalist powers of Eastern Europe and the
racism which still exists throughout the world, not least in England were
first opposed in Bilston.

WOLVERHAMPTON CITY OF CULTURE, EDUCATION, SPORT AND
BUSINESS IN 2010

VICTIMS OF INJUSTICE.
The injustice of the killing of Jean Charles Menezes by the
Metropolitan Police drags on. Sir Ian Blair was chief of the Metropolitan
Police when the
murder occurred in July 2005. There followed an inquest which returned an
open verdict when the police revealed that Mr.Menezes had been shot seven
times in the head and once in the shoulder. A police enquiry was held but
its results not revealed, and as I understand it, this remains the position
today, despite there having been a change of Police Commissioner and also
the development of a Black Police Unit in the Metropolitan Police who are
far from satisfied with the status of black police within the Force.
But it was a differenct question that I posed when I became concerned
with the matter a few days after Mr. Menezes murder. My question was, Why do
the police not shoot to wound instead of to kill? If this had happened in
the Menezes case not only would they have had a live witness who would have
explained that he was not a terrorist, but they would not have been guilty
of the crime of murder.
It is now several months since I posed these question to the
Metropolitan Police
and in view of the current climate of gang culture and shootings it is
essential that we get an answer not only from the Metropolitan Police, but
also the Home Secretary , Jacqui Smith.

GREETINGS FROM CANADA.
It is always gratifying to receive messages from overseas showing that
the Barnsby BLOG is effective throughout the world.
In this case it is Brenda Barron telling of her great interest in Frank
Spittle’s innovative idea to raise funds to send war time veterans on the
65th anniversary of VE day to the graves of their fallen comrades. This bore
fruit at the beginning of this week when we were told that Rotary Clubs and
others would be interested in what Frank calls his SENDAVET Scheme. I also
believe that it has changed this skinflint government’s attitude to the
venture and they will now find the money to fund the scheme.
But Brenda finds other reasons for supporting the scheme. She says that
because of the veterans she was able to choose to make her home in Canada
where veterans of wars are cherished and remembered with gratitude and
pride. She works at a Museum of Wartime Aircraft working with the veterans
of three wars all wonderful gentlemen from whom she has learned so much. If
every spectator at a football match gave ?1 (this was part of Frank’s
scheme particularly Wolverhampton Wanderers to which Frank is so closely
connected) in a couple of weeks there would be enough money to send as many
veterans as are able to travel. Hurrah for Mr.Spittle. Hurrah for the
SENDAVETSCHEME. And, wait for it, here’s the surprise ending, Brenda
Barron,
is formerly a Wulfrunian.
Great to meet you, Brenda, and we’ll keep in touch!

STOP THE WAR COALITION.
The STWC Newsletter of 23 March says PROTEST AT THE G20. The leaders of
the world powers will be at their summit in London next week. It will be
Barak Obama’s first visit to London and an opportunity to demand change from
Bush’s war policies.The anti-war demo will assemble at the US embassy in
London at 2pm on Wednesday 1st April . A message will be handed in at the
American Embassy and then there will be a march through London as the world
leaders arrive.
The message to Obama and the world leader will be, ‘Yes we Can’. Yes
we can end the siege of Gaza, and Free Palestine. Yes we can get the troops
out of Iraq and Afghanistan, make jobs, not war, abolish nukes and stop
arming Israel.
Stickers, posters and postcards are available from the Stop the War
office on 0207 801 2768 . Among those speaking at Trafalgar Square will be
Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill,, anti-debt campaigner Susan George, rapper
Lowkey, Palestinian singer Reem Kolani, Keith Sonnet of UNISON and Daud
Abdullah from the British Muslim Initiative. Other events are: Protest at
the G20 Summit Thursday 2nd April. STW is calling a protest at the Summit
itself on Thursday. Starts at the Excel in East London at 11 am,

‘NO TO NATO’ PROTEST STRASBOURG APRIL 4 AND 5
Tens of thousands of people will be travelling from all over Europe to
Protest at the Strasbourg meeting. Stop the War is putting on coaches
leaving Victoria Embankment at 6am on Friday Apr 3rd.. Book your seat now
online at www.stopwar.org.uk or phone 020 7801 2768.
These are the sort of events that the Barnsby BLOG and COPAM will wish
to support:

FOR PEACE AND SOCIALISM AGAINST WAR AND FOR
MULTICULTURALISM

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ AND THE FURTHEST EAST RHYTHM CLUB IN THE WORLD.
A mixed message from our new contact with the International Association
of Jazz Record Collectors (IAJRC), Andy Simons, with his delightful email
address of lovebirds@tiscali.co.uk
On the India/Burma border at Imphal in 1942 with what we called the
Furthest East Rhythm Club in the World (FERCINT) which was unique in
operating with monthly meetings with about 150 members in a war zone, until
rudely interrupted by the Japanese offensive which was meant to conquer
India and link up with Hitler but was stopped in its tracks by our troops
staying put, being supplied from the air in what was the largest air lift in
the world at the time, and enduring the three month siege of Imphal and
particularly Kohima which saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
We were well aware of our debt to the jazz which originated in the USA,
but it
is only about 50 years after this that we have become aware through the
IAJRC of developments before World War II and we are grateful to Andy for
pointing out that there was jazz in the Far East in the 1930s mainly due to
sophisticated Japanese who got records and printed sheet music from just
across the Bay at San Francisco. By the 1930s xenophobic nationalism forced
the aficionados to migrate to Shanghai and it was well established there
from
1927, with Teddy Weatherford as a star and Li Jin Hui a leader of The Clear
Wind Band. Andy recommends E.Taylor Atkins’ book: Blue Nippon -
Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Duke University Press 2001).
All this is quite new to me, but whether Harry Johnson and his bosom
pal Ken Allsop who founded the FEJCINTW knew of it at that time, or, since
Ken’s untimely death, Harry Johnson knows now I am not sure and will have
to ask him.
Our wires also seem to be crossed on the original article we sent to
IAJRC entitled Early British Jazz , Wolverhampton and Jehovah’s Witnesses
which was an account of how a Jehovah’s Witness Shiv Awale came to my door
and I told him that I would have nothing to do with JWs unless they would be
worldly enough to oppose the war in Iraq which Shiv more or less agreed
until
he disappeared to India for many months, missing my 90th Birthday Party,.
But
he has now resurfaced and I am wondering whether he has been in touch with
Don Rendell, a pioneer New Jazz saxophonist and my wife’s sister-in-law’s
brother who is also a Jehovah’s witness.
Jazz fans may know that Ian Carr recently died and in his obituaries
published in the Guardian and Times etc. no mention was made of Ian’s
associations with Don Rendell. This however has been explained by our own
jazz expert and drummer, Dave Holmes who plays these days mainly at the
Trumpet in Bilston High Street the only venue in Britain who host jazz every
night of the week every week of the year. (Are there any clubs in the US
Andy Simon which can make such a boast?).
I also think I question Andy’s statement that my piece would not be
printed unless Don’s career had been affected by his having been a Jehovah’s
Witness. But that is an important point because JWs do not perform on a
Sunday and this has obviously limited Don’s career. IAJRC are anxious to
have as much music by Don Rendell as possible and we would all like more of
that.
Andy also gives news of the blind, British king of pianists George
Shearing. My connection with George is that we were both born in the same
year (1919) in the same place, (the London suburb of Battersea) and I
attended piano lessons given by him in the 1930s before he became famous and
I want to keep in touch with him and perhaps help develop a fan club. Andy
tells me that George will be 90 in August and offers me a classified
advertisement in the Journal to contact him. But I already have a contact
address in Dina Roth who will pass on any letter to George and I shall send
him a birthday card and hope he has a 90th Birthday Party as
good as mine was in the Banqueting Suite of the Sir Jack Hayward’s Suite at
the Wolverhampton Wanderers splendid modern ground.

CONVENTION OF THE LEFT.
More to my liking than the Peoples Charter is the Convention of the
Left which invites all organisations to join including Communists of many
hues and proclaims the war in Iraq the most important issue confronting the
world. The affiliation of the GB Working Class Library and COPAM has not yet
been recognised but PEACE and MULTICULTURALISM are the two main issues in
the world and we look forward to working with the Convention of the Left in
helping to achieve..

FOR PEACE AND SOCIALISM.